PREFACE xiii 



It is much to be regretted that this gentleman has not given 

 further details respecting his authorities for including some of the 

 species and their breeding in the country. I must confess personal 

 responsibility for one species open to objection, viz., Parus camtschat- 

 kensis, inserted in the article contributed to The Ibis, October 

 1899, with the hurried assistance of one of our best English 

 ornithologists, on the authority of a skin terribly mauled by 

 shot ; but a small committee subsequently " sat on " that skin 

 and unanimously decided it to be Parus horealis. Another error 

 connected with the birds of this country was the inclusion of 

 the Green Sandpiper Totanus ochropus among the birds of Lutni, 

 in The Ibis, p. 212, April 1896, which should have been entered 

 as the Wood - Sandpiper T. glareola. Unfortunately this mistake 

 has already been copied in two standard ornithological works 

 on the continent. I am also far less satisfied in 1904 with the 

 evidence on behalf of the Great Snipe Gallinago major, recorded 

 on the same page, than I was in 1895. The eggs are decidedly 

 large for the Common Snipe, but they are equally small for the 

 Great Snipe; the bird was only seen by two of us, and not shot. 

 The nesting of Tringa subarquata (Pelidna subarquata, Gtild) on the 

 western Murman coast is certainly a case where information is 

 desirable, beyond the '''' (indicating breeding) inserted in the list. 

 All the information we have at present shows that the breeding 

 range of this species is to the east of the river Yenesei, and any 

 record in Europe ought to be most carefully verified before it is 

 admitted. English ornithologists would be glad to receive further 

 details respecting the breeding haunts of Stercorarius pomatorhinus on 

 the west Murman coast, although I have little doubt the bird nests 

 there in favourable seasons. Eae gives aS'. catarrhactes in his list of 

 birds for Russian Lapland, and M. Goebel also includes it, but 

 possibly both have mistaken a melanic specimen of S. pomatoilmius 

 for this species. Still M. Goebel's is a valuable list, adding to our 

 knowledge of the birds of this country. 



