Cruise of the Revenue Steamer Corwin in Alaska and the N. W. Arctic Ocean in 1881; Notes and Memoranda ... (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1883 Excerpt: ...introduced solely by a flight of the artist's imagination. This is strictly an Asiatic bird, and its occurrence here upon the hillside far above the tide-mark shows that it must have reached here alive, probably during some storm, and died subsequently of starvation or exposure. Although the bird was obtained the 12th of August, yet it is a young of the year in its first plumage, of which the following is a description: The crown and upper part of the back is slightly dull rufous or chestnut; back lighter toward rump where it is grayish and yellowish brown with dark bars. The upper tail coverts are russet or reddish brown with dark barring near the end and tipped with grayish. The feathers of crown and back are edged slightly with grayish, showing the immature plumage. The wings are brown with color of the back extending over the shoulders, but with the coverts brown, edged with dull buffy and grayish and becoming reddish in some instances. The tertiaries are edged broadly with pale brownish yellow. The tail is reddish brown, nearly uniform, except the outer feather, which is lighter than the inner. Belly nearly a uniform yellowish white, marked on breast and sides with fine, wavy, and irregular bars of brownish or blackish, giving a loosely vermiculated appearance to the lower surface. The throat is immaculate yellowish white. The lores are grayish white, shaded with buffy, which color extends back as an imperfect supraorbital line, and the cheeks and anriculars are yellowish white or pale buffy, finely maculated with dark edges to the feathers. The measurements of the bird are: Inches. Wing 3.40 Tail 3.70 Culmen 50 Depth of bill at base 28 Tarsus.'.....98 The graduation of the tail is nearly seventy-hundredths of an inch. HIRUNDINID. SWALLOWS. HIRT/NDO ER...