420 PROCEEDINGS: BOSTON SOCIETY NATURAL HISTORY. 
Saxicola oenanthe leucorhoa (Gmel.). 
Greenland Wheatear. 
Rare summer resident. 
Baird, Brewer, and Ridgway say of the Wheatear: “Dr. H. R. 
Storer of Boston found them breeding in Labrador in the summer of 
1848, and procured specimens of the young birds which were fully 
identified by Dr. Samuel Cabot as belonging to this species. In the 
following year Andrew Downs, of Halifax, gave me the specimen 
described and figured by Air. Cassin. This was secured late in the 
summer near Cape Harrison, Labrador, where it had evidently just 
reared its brood.Its occurrence in considerable numbers on the 
coast of Labrador is further confirmed by a writer (‘W. C.’) in the 
‘Field’ for June 10, 1871.” 
A specimen was brought to Coues by a sailor at Henley Harbor on 
August 25, 1860. It was said to be in company with two others. 
Coues thought it might be S. oenanthoides of Vigors, an incorrect view 
for Vigors’ measurements showed that he referred to the small form 
S. oenanthe. Bigelow says that the Hudson’s Bay company’s factor 
at Nachvak had three nests. 
This Wheatear that breeds in Labrador reaches its summer home 
from Africa by way of England, Iceland, and Greenland. It is a 
larger race than oenanthe which is found in Alaska. 
Stejneger’s (’ 01 , p. 477) remarks on the wheatears in North America 
are here worth quoting. He says: “We have, consequently, in 
America both forms, Saxicola oenanthe in Alaska and Saxicola 
leucorhoa in Greenland and adjacent parts of northeastern North 
America. As all the birds found in the latter part of the continent 
belong to the large race, it is settled beyond the shadow of a doubt 
that the Wheatears which breed in Alaska do not migrate by way 
of Greenland or Labrador, but that they retrace their steps into the 
Tchuktchi Peninsula and farther south into Asia, as indicated by 
me fifteen vears atm. 
%j O 
“The Wheatear, the most widely distributed species of the genus 
Saxicola, thus extends its range across the entire palaearctic continent 
from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean. At both extremities of its 
home continent, however, it has expanded its range into the New 
World, and no one who follows on the map the route of the retreating 
