252 BULLETIN 130, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



during June. The nest is placed in rather marsliy ground and is a simple 

 depression lined with down, with which the eggs are completely covered when 

 the birds leave the nest. The birds sometimes begin to sit on 4 eggs and some- 

 times lay as many as 6. 



MacFarlane (1891) sent to Washington 650 eggs of this brant 

 from Fort Anderson, obtained by the Eskimos on the Arctic coast of 

 Liverpool Bay, where it was exceedingly abundant, but he adds 

 little to our scanty knowledge of its breeding habits. He wrote 

 to Professor Baird, concerning a visit to an island in Liverpool Bay 

 on July 4, 1864, as follows : 



Bernicla hrenta breeds on small islands on the small lakes occurring on 

 this island. It scoops a hole in the sand or turf composing the island and 

 lines it with down taken from the body of the female. They frequently nest 

 in small parties, but a pair will sometimes select an island for themselves. 

 Very few specimens were seen, though numerous nests containing broken 

 eggs were met with ; these had evidently been destroyed by white foxes, gulls, 

 owls, and crows. But for the depredations committed by them we should 

 have made a superb collection of eggs of Somateria, Bernicla hutchinsU, Anser 

 gamhclU, Columhus articus, gulls, and terns. A great many nests of each 

 and all of these species were found without eggs, their contents having been 

 destroyed. The entire damage inflicted on the poor birds in one season 

 must be enormous. 



Rev. A. R. Hoare sent me a fine nest and 5 eggs of the black 

 brant, taken at Tigara, near Point Hope, Alaska, in June 1916; it 

 consisted of a great mass of down on a small low island in an exten- 

 sive marsh; judging from the two photographs, which came with 

 it, it must have been quite conspicuous. He found other nests 

 sunken in moss and grass near the lakes out on the tundra. There 

 is a nest and 5 eggs in the collection of Herbert Massey, Esq., taken 

 by W. E. Snyder, at Admiralty Bay, Alaska, on June 16, 1898 ; the 

 nest which consists of a large quantity of down, was in a depres- 

 sion in the dry tundra. I received 11 sets of black brant's eggs, all 

 consisting of 5 eggs, with the nests, from Point Barrow, Alaska, in 

 1916. The nests of this species are the most beautiful nests I have 

 ever seen of any of the ducks and geese; they are great, soft, thick 

 beds of pure, fluffy down, unmixed with the tundra rubbish so 

 common in nests of other species ; the down is a rich, handsome shade 

 of "benzo brown" or "deep brownish drab," flecked with whitish; 

 it must make a warm and luxurious blanket to cover the eggs. 



Eggs. — The black brant lays from 4 to 8 eggs, but 5 seems to be by 

 far the commonest number. The prevailing shapes are elliptical ovate 

 or elliptical oval ; some are elongate ovate and a few are nearly ovate, 

 rounded at the small end. The colors are " cartridge buff," " ivorj^ 

 yellow," " pale olive buff," or " cream color." The original color is 

 often much obscured by stains or mottlings of various buffy or 



