80 NORTH AMERICAN DUCKS, GEESE, AND SWANS. 



are iinsatisfactoiy, though the species wiU probabl}" be found to breed 

 rarely on North Somerset Island. 



Winter range. — It is common during- the winter along the Atlantic 

 coast from Florida to New Jersey, less common on Long Island, and 

 rare during the winter in Rhode Island and Massachusetts. A strag- 

 gler was secured on Barbados, November 15, 1876. 



Records for the interior of North America are not numerous. Speci- 

 mens are recorded from the Whitewater Valley, Indiana; Ottawa, 

 Ontario, fall of 18S7; Racine, Wis. ; Omaha, Nebr., November 9, 1895; 

 Lake Manitoba, spring of 1889; Fort Lj^on, Colo., April 11, 1883; 

 Comox, British Columbia, January 10, 1901. 



Spring migration. — Since no brant in spring pass north along the 

 west coast of Hudson Bay, all the individuals of the species must 

 perform their spring migration on the Atlantic coast. The}^ return 

 in February to Long Island Sound, where they stay in mild winters, 

 and appear on the southeastern coast of Massachusetts on the average 

 February 23. The}' are common in these waters for six weeks. By 

 the end of March the van has already reached northern Nova Scotia. 

 They spend the next month around the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and 

 then move slowly northward. All observers agree that the brant do 

 not go around the east shore of Newfoundland, but steer more directly 

 north across the Labrador Peninsula. The average date on which 

 they reach latitude 46" in the Gulf of St. Lawrence is March 23, and 

 it is not until Ma}^ 30 that early arrivals have been recorded in lati- 

 tude 79'^, sliowing an average speed of 34 miles per day. The average 

 date of arrival in latitude 82-^ is June 7, or an average speed from 

 latitude 11'-' to latitude 82-^ of 28 miles per day. The most northern 

 record of the brant is latitude 82° 33' on the north coast of Grinnell 

 Land. Here it arrived June 9, 1876, and the lirst eggs were found 

 June 21. A hundred miles to the south, at Ross Inlet, eggs were taken 

 June 16, and at Cape Sabine, latitude 78° 40', June 17, 1900. 



The last disappear from North Carolina waters the first week in 

 April; most leave Cape Cod, Massachusetts, by April 24, and the 

 remainder about the 1st of May, though at various times birds have 

 been seen the last week of this month. The south shore of the Gulf of 

 St. Lawrence is deserted usually June 9-12, just as the earliest brant 

 are arriving' on their breeding grounds. 



Fall migration. — Southward-moving flocks of brant were seen 

 August 20, 1876, at Cape Lieber, latitude 81° 30', ten weeks after the 

 first had passed north. In less than three weeks the last had disap- 

 peared, i. e., they were not over three months on the breeding grounds. 

 The black brant breeding at Point Barrow, Alaska, were present from 

 June 5 to September 20, 1898, fifteen weeks, and this latter period is 

 about as long as the interval spent at their breeding grounds by those 

 small land birds of the Gulf States that migrate earliest in the fall. 



