260 BULLETIN 130, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



but undeveloped eggs in their ovaries. In the mountain the geese were not very 

 shy and paid no attention to my shots ; the great height at which the birds 

 always stayed made them confident. In the marsh, however, they were very 

 wary and almost always had sentinels posted while they were seeking food. 



The Oxford expeditions to Spitsbergen in 1921 and 1922 succeeded 

 in locating a number of nests of this species and collecting a series 

 of eggs. The Rev. F. C. E.. Jourdain has kindly sent me the fol- 

 lowing interesting notes on the subject: 



The barnacle goose in Spitsbergen seems to have its main breeding haunts 

 in the valleys opening into Ice Fjord. We saw nothing of it on the north 

 coast or at Liefde Bay, but met with it at Advent Bay, Sassen Bay, Klaas 

 Bitten Bay, and Dicksons Bay during the breeding season, and have good 

 reason to believe that it breeds in all three localities. Probably in order to 

 escape the attentions of the Arctic foxes this species has acquired the habit 

 of nesting on ledges and hollows in precipitous bluffs, and even on the tops 

 of isolated pinnacles of rock. In many of the valleys in Spitzbergen one finds 

 a continuous succession of steep outcrops of rock running along the side of 

 the valley, and in some cases more than one tier running parallel with one 

 another and separated by a steeply sloping range of hillside or talus. It is on 

 these projecting masses of rock that the barnacle nests, and as the goose sits 

 closely and is not readily disturbed from below, a nest halfway up the hill- 

 side on a projecting rock may escape notice altogether on the part of those 

 traversing the bottom of the valley. The gander stands close by his mate 

 on watch, and his white face may be detected with a good glass from a con- 

 siderable distance. Even when approached from above both male and femalie 

 are slow to leave the nest when the eggs are much incubated, and the gander 

 in some cases will look up inquiringly at the intruder from 20 or 30 yards 

 below before taking wing, while the goose will allow of even closer approach. 

 In one case where a goose was shot from the nest, the report failed to 

 flush another bird, which was also sitting on eggs, not more than 20 yards 

 farther on. Evidently the same breeding places are resorted to year after 

 year, as it is often possible to detect the sites of several old nests in the imme- 

 diate neighborhood of that in use. The sites varied to some extent, some nests 

 were on gently sloping declivities, sparsely covered with lichens and mosses, 

 at the foot of a low cliff or on ledges on its face, and with a drop of 10 to 20 

 or 30 feet below ; others were on projecting spurs of rocks reached by a narrow 

 " knife-edge " from the main face of the cliff ; one was in a small cave over- 

 hung from above and with a sheer drop below ; and a bird was observed sitting 

 on the flat top of a mushroom-shaped pinnacle of rock, at the very top of a 

 high cliff. In practically every case where the female was incubating eggs, 

 the male was standing close beside her, and the ground near the nest was 

 covered with the accumulation of droppings from the parent birds, which evi- 

 dently spend most of the incubation period here. 



In 1922 we renewed our acquaintance with this species, but found to oui- 

 disappointment that none of the sites occupied in 1921 were tenanted. This 

 was probably due to shooting and egg collecting by the residents prior to 

 our arrival ; but anyhow the birds had disappeared and the high winds had 

 removed all traces of the nests. A range of hills some 1,500 to 1,700 feet 

 high, with bold cliffs and conspicuous stony ridges running down from the 

 top, seemed likely to produce the desired result, so we proceeded to make our 

 way up a steep gulley till at last we reached the top of the ridge. Working 



