XXXIV.—<i>List of Birds observed in Smith Sound and in the Polar Basin during the Arctic Expedition of</i> 1875–76

Abstract

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-