THE OSPREY. 



115 



friends would feel quite repaid for the trouble they 

 have taken, to put within reach of these poor chil- 

 dren, such treasures — treasures that have brought 

 them in touch with a new world and have given 

 mere words a rich living meaning. Their interest in 

 the specimens is unbounded. They seem to be most 

 deeply impressed with the fact thcil these //lini^s once 

 lived, and could move, swim, run, fly, etc. 



These gifts have proved not only most valuable in 

 Nature Study, but have added new interest to our 

 color lessons, and lessons in geography. I feel deeply 

 grateful to The Ospkev and its readers and to you, 

 and would also thank you all on behalf of my teachers 

 and the eight hundred and ninety (890) children into 

 whose lives you have poured so much pleasure. 



Yours truly, M.arv R. D.avi.s, Prhuipal. 



THE BIRDS OF BOWDOIN BAY. 



GEORGE HARLOW CLARKE, NATURALIST, PEARY POLAR EXPEDITION, 1893-4. 



SITUATED far up on the western shore of Green- vorite resort and, flapping inquisitively over us, 



land, Bowdoin Bay. some five miles wide, ex- croaked a lugubrious welcome. From that hour 



tends inland a distance of about twelve miles until the time of our final departure southward, save 



due north from Inglefield Gulf, an arm of the polar only while we were traversing the vast ice desert of 



sea penetrating the coast between Smith Sound and the interior. Ravens were almost continually seen or 



Baffin Bay. The terminal wall of Bowdoin Glacier, heard about the bay. In fact, they became a source 



an immense ice-river flowing from the eternal, in- of positive annoyance to us, for, arrant pilferers that 



land »ier-de-giate, bounds the 

 head of the bay, while barren 

 highlands, rising to an altitude 

 of several hundred feet and 

 broken here and there by 

 glaciers, glacial valleys or ra- 

 vines, confine it on the east 

 and west. To eastward of 

 Bowdoin Glacier and parallel 

 to it, a series of lake-dotted up- 

 lands, carpeted in summer 

 with hardy Arctic herbage, 

 stretches northward perhaps 

 five miles from the shore of 

 Falcon Harbor, near the bay's 

 head, where, hard by the base 

 of Mount Bartlett, a precip- 

 itous niinatak two thousand 

 feet in height, the headquar- 

 ters of the North Greenland 

 Expedition of 1893-4 were lo- 

 cated. 



GEORGE HARLOW ( I.AKM. 



they are, they were ever alert 

 to despoil the carcasses of 

 reindeer which, after shooting, 

 we were sometimes forced to 

 leave temporarily exposed 

 while we pushed on in pursuit 

 of others. Moreover, seem- 

 ingly impelled by a spirit of 

 malicious mischief, they not 

 infrequently joined insult to 

 injury by wantonly tearing out 

 patches of hair from the un- 

 protected hides. They were 

 also inveterate enemies of our 

 carrier pigeons. 



Scarcely less numerous, al- 

 though perhaps less frequently 

 recorded, was the Rock Ptar- 

 migan (/,. rupestris reiuJiardti). 

 Throughout the winter its cu- 

 rious, vine-like tracks abound- 

 ed on the valley's snowy wind- 



A list, based on observations covering a period of ing-sheets and, in early summer, the protracted, rat- 

 twelve consecutive months, of the birds frequenting tling lutrr-r-r of the male, basking on some warm 

 the bay comprises nineteen authenticated species. Of boulder-top amid the talus at Mount Bartlett's base, 

 others, which, including Brunnich's Guillemot, Long- was a familiar sound. The young Eskimos hunt the 

 tailed Jaeger, Brant, Purple Sandpiper, Arctic Tern, Ptarmigans with bows and arrows or even with peb- 

 etc, are recorded in my notes as occurring in that bles, which many of the native urchins cast with un- 

 vicinity, no further mention will be made at present ; erring aim ; but the usual mode of capturing them is 

 it being as yet, only hypothetically that they may be by means of seal-thong snares. The bird's plump 

 accorded a place in the limited ornithology of the figure, in minature, is a favorite subject of the Innuit 



bay. 



The most conspicuous land bird of Bowdoin Bay, 

 as, indeed, it also is of all Greenland, is the Raven. 

 When, for the first time since the era of authentic 

 history began, a vessel, the ill-starred steamer ' Fal- 



ivory-carver's skill. 



Besides the Raven and F'tarmigan, which are in- 

 disputably resident species, the Eskimos, who, in 

 their way, are astute ornithologists, aver that the 

 Snowy Owl and Greenland Gyrfalcon, specimens of 



con,' dropped anchor in Falcon Harbor, one glorious both of which were encountered by us in the neigh- 

 August morning in 1893, the great Ravens that borhood, brave the vigorous, sunless winter of that 

 haunt the inaccessible crags high up on sombre latitude. 

 Mount Bartlett's precipitous face deserted their fa- Prominent as summer visitors are the Mandt's 



