THE IBIS. 
FOURTH SERIES. 
No. IV. OCTOBER 1877. 
XXXIV.— List of Birds observed in Smith Sound and in the 
Polar Basin during the Arctic Expedition of 1875-76. By 
H. W. Eeilden. 
In the following notes I have confined myself to an enume¬ 
ration of the various species of birds met with by the recent 
Arctic Expedition in Smith Sound and northward, between 
the seventy-eighth and eighty-third degrees of north latitude. 
All of the birds noted are well-known arctic forms ; and the 
chief interest lies in the record of their great northern exten¬ 
sion in the western hemisphere. The only other part of the 
globe lying within nearly the same parallels of latitude with 
which we are well acquainted is Spitsbergen; and though 
that group of islands has been frequently visited by accom¬ 
plished and painstaking naturalists, yet the number of species 
of birds, including stragglers, at present known to have oc¬ 
curred there is under thirty. Were I to include in this list 
species recorded by Dr. Bessels * from Thank-God Harbour, 
not met with by me, the list of the avifauna of Smith Sound 
and Spitsbergen would be about numerically equal, thus ac- 
* Bulletin de la Societe de Geographie: Paris, 1875. 
SER. IV.-VOL. i. 2 f 
