272 
Mr. G. E. H. Barrett-Hamilton on 
Dr. Leonhard Stejneger* who has produced the latest and 
most complete account of the birds of Kamchatka as a 
whole. His memoir is, I believe, the only publication of 
the kind in the English language. It is therefore to his 
‘ Birds of Kamchatka 3 that I have referred for information 
or for the elucidation of any doubtful questions, and I 
have also found it convenient (with some exceptions) to 
follow his system of nomenclature, although I fear it will 
not commend itself to all naturalists of the Old World. 
When Dr. Stejneger wrote his work, he had records of 
the occurrence of 175 species or subspecies of birds on the 
mainland of Kamchatka. Practically none of these are 
occasional visitants, so that that number may be taken as 
representing with fair accuracy the true avifauna of the 
country. The total is little affected by the few additions 
which I was able to make to it, since, of these, two, viz. 
Mareca americana and Heteractitis incanus, are American 
species. They are already known, it is true, from the 
western side of Bering Sea, the former from a single 
specimen, the latter as a regular summer visitor to, and 
possible breeder on, the Commander Islands; but it is likely 
that they are only occasional or accidental visitors to the 
Asiatic mainland. A third, Accentor montaneilus , seems to 
be an addition to the group of those Pahearctic summer 
birds which, although migrating annually north-eastward to 
the western and probably reaching even the eastern shores 
of Bering Strait, do not habitually occur in Kamchatka, for 
my bird was obtained in a quite natural locality on the 
island of Karaginski, on the very north-eastern boundary of 
the peninsula. The fourth, QLdemia carho, is a bird previously 
known from the Japanese area : it is a pity that my single 
specimen (for which I am indebted to Mr. Jacobleff, of 
Petropavlovsk) is undated. The fifth, Cepphus snowi, may 
represent an annual summer visitant, if, as has been sug¬ 
gested by Dr. Stejnegerf, it be found that this, the Kuril- 
* “ Results of Ornithological Explorations in the Commander Islands 
and in Kamtschatka,” being Bull. No. 29 of the U. S. Nat. Mus. (1885 ). 
t “The Birds of the Kuril Islands,” Proc. U.S. Nat. Mus. no. 1144, 
1898, p. 272. 
