NEWTON ON BIRDS IN GREENLAND; 95 



and the notes of Dr. David Walker*, who did not possess any 

 special proficiency in the study, furnish almost the only increase 

 to our knowledge of the subject gained during that period.f 

 The different American expeditions, judging from what has been 

 published about them, added absolutely nothing — a fact particularly 

 to be regretted when we regard the high latitudes they successively 

 reached. More in this respect was achieved by the Germans, and 

 to the observations of Dr. Pansch, contained in the elaborate 

 work of Dr. FinschJ, we owe information of some value. To 

 various works not especially treating of Arctic Ornithology, or 

 of the Ornithology of Davis Strait at least, there is no need for 

 me here to refer more in detail. 



It is now beginning to be recognized by ornithologists that to 

 draw any sound conclusions from the avifauna of a country we 

 must strictly limit our basis to the species of Birds which either 

 breed in or annually, for a longer or shorter period, frequent it, 

 and consequently to obtain a true notion of its peculiarities all 

 accidental stragglers should be dismissed from consideration. 

 They are indeed eminently worthy of regard from another point 

 of view, throwing light as they do on the general question of the 

 wanderings of Birds, but they are of little account in the aid they 

 give to elucidating the great subject of Geographical Distribution. 

 It has, therefore, seemed to me expedient to distinguish between 

 these two categories by using a different series of numbers to indicate 

 them, and also by indenting the paragraphs in which the stragglers 

 are noticed. Without some such precaution the interspersal of 

 stragglers among true denizens only leads to confusion, and espe- 

 cially would it do so in the present case when the two categories 

 are almost equal in number, while most of the stragglers have 

 occurred outside of the Arctic Circle, and in places lying many 

 degrees of latitude to the southward of the tracts which the new 

 Expedition is to explore. Still further to direct attention to these 

 last tracts, the names of those species which, so far as one can judge, 

 may be not unreasonably looked for in Smith Sound, and some 

 of them thence to the northward, are printed in thick type, while 

 the names of those which are known to breed in Greenland 

 and yet may not be expected to occur beyond the Danish Settle- 

 ments are in small capitals. The native (Esquimaux) names when 

 given by Fabricius or others are marked by inverted commas. 

 I have further to premise that the Danish Settlements are divided 

 into two Inspectorates, roughly speaking, separated by the 68th 

 parallel, as well as to observe that when a species is said to be 



* Ibis, I860, pp. 165-168 ; Journal of the Royal Dublin Society, 1860 

 pp. 61-67. 



f The majority of such ornithological specimens as -were collected during 

 the Franklin search passed into the possession of Mr. Barrow, who subse- 

 quently gave his collection to the Museum of the University of Oxford, and 

 a catalogue of it has been published by Mr. Harting (Proceedings of the 

 Zoological Society, 1871, pp. 110-123). 



. % Die zweite deutsche Nordpolarfahrt. Leipzig: 1874. 2 vols. 8vo. vol. ii. 

 pp. 178-239. 



