254 GAME BIRDS. WILD-FOWL AND SHORE BIRDS. 



Range. — Eastern North and South America. Breeding range unknown, but 

 probably northern Ungava; winters from Florida south to northern 

 Brazil; in migration regularly on the Atlantic coast and occasionally 

 in Illinois, Indiana and Ontario; accidental in Greenland, Bermuda, 

 Great Britain and France. 



History. 



The Brown-back, as the Dowitcher is called on Cape Cod, 

 is one of the most interesting of all waders. Unsuspecting and 

 gentle, it may be approached easily and closely studied. It 

 was one of the birds which was found on the Atlantic coast in 

 enormous numbers when the country was first settled, and 

 which possibly summered in small numbers all along the coast. 

 Scott found it not rare in summer on the coast of Florida, 

 Mcllhenny notes it the year round in Louisiana, and Wayne 

 rates it as a resident in South Carolina, where he finds non- 

 breeding birds in June. 



Its breeding range is not well known. Many writers 

 describe its nest and eggs, but the probability is that those 

 described belong to the next species. Howe in his Study of 

 Macrorhamphus gives the breeding range of this bird as 

 extending on all sides of Hudson Bay, except to the south, 

 and reaching across Melville Peninsula, Ungava and about 

 half way up Bafiin Land.^ W. W. Cooke ^ says that the nest 

 and eggs are unknown to science, nor has the species been 

 seen in summer at any place where it was probably breeding. 

 He finds by a study of the records of arctic explorers and 

 naturalists that all known arctic regions are eliminated as 

 breeding places for this bird, except the eastern coast of Hud- 

 son Bay and the interior of Ungava, in the northern part of 

 the peninsula of Labrador, • — regions which hardly have been 

 explored by naturalists. It does not seem probable, at first 

 sight, that a species which formerly appeared on our coasts in 

 such great numbers could have had so limited a breeding 

 ground. Nevertheless, Professor Cooke says that there are 

 no records of the occurrence of this bird north of Ungava, 

 except one in Greenland, and if the species breeds in BaflBn 



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1 Howe, Reginald Heber: Auk, 1901, pp. 157-162. 



2 Distribution and Migration of North American Shore Birds, 1910, pp. 26, 27. 



