wore thick mittens and very heavy clothing, I felt chilly with the cold. John's violin notes carry my thoughts far, far from Labrador, I assure thee.
July 20. Labrador deserves credit for one fine day! To-day has been calm, warm, and actually such a day as one might expect in the Middle States about the month of May. I drew from half-past three till ten this morning. The young men went off early, and the captain and myself went to the island next to us, but saw few birds: a Brown Lark, some Gulls, and the two White-crowned Buntings. In some small bays which we passed we found the stones thrown up by the sea in immense numbers, and of enormous size. These stones I now think are probably brought on shore in the masses of ice during the winter storms. These icebergs, then melting and breaking up, leave these enormous pebble-shaped stones, from ten to one hundred feet deep. When I returned to my drawing the captain went fishing, and caught thirty-seven cod in less than an hour. The wind rose towards evening, and the boats did not get in till nine o'clock, and much anxiety did I feel about them. Coolidge is an excellent sailor, and John too, for that matter, but very venturesome; and Lincoln equally so. The chase, as usual, poor; two Canadian Grouse in moult,—these do moult earlier than the Willow Grouse,[1]—some White-throated Sparrows, Yellow-rump Warblers, the Green Black-cap Flycatcher, the small Wood Pewee (?). I think this a new species, but cannot swear to it.[2] The
- ↑ Or Willow Ptarmigan, Lagopus albus—the same that Audubon has already spoken of procuring and drawing; but this is the first mention he makes which enables us to judge which of two species occurring in Labrador he had. The other is the Rock Grouse, or Ptarmigan, L. rupestris.—E. C.
- ↑ This is the bird which Audubon afterward identified with Tyrannula richardsonii of Swainson, Fn., Bor.-Am., ii., 1831, p. 146, pl. 46, lower fig., and published under the name of the Short-legged Pewee or Pewit Fly-catcher, Muscicapa phœbe, in Orn. Biogr., v. p. 299, pi. 434; B. Am., 8vo ed., i. p. 219, pi. 61. The species is now well known as the Western Wood Pewee, Contopus richardsoni; but it has never since Audubon's time been authenticated as a bird of Labrador. Audubon was of course perfectly familiar with the common Wood Pewee, Contopus virens, and with the Pewit Fly-catcher, Sayornis phœbe. We can hardly imagine him mistaken regarding the identity of either of these familiar birds; yet there is something about this Labrador record of supposed C. richardsoni which has never been satisfactorily explained.—E. C.
