Avifauna of Franz Jo sc'f Land. 251 



and Mr. lieigh Smith and his party wintered at Cape Flora, to which 

 neighbourhood the Notes chiefly relate. 



1897. Nansen (Feidtjof). Farthest North. 



Volume IT. contains numerous allusions to the birds seen during the 

 sledge and boat journey from the north-east of the archipelago to Cape 

 Flora. 



In addition to the above works there are two papers by 

 Mr. (now Sir) Clements R. Markham in the Proc. Roy, 

 Geogr. Soc. vol. iii. p. 129, v. p. 204, also describing- 

 Mr. Leigh Smith's two voyages, and these papers contain 

 some allusions to the birds observed. 



Finally we have Mr. Wm. S. Bruce's collection, made 

 during his sojourn at Cape Flora, while an officer of the 

 Jackson-Harmsworth Polar Expedition. The species ob- 

 tained or observed during this expedition are nineteen in 

 number out of a total of twenty-two for the archipelago : 

 their names are marked with an asterisk in the following 

 List. Five of the birds procured are new to Franz Josef 

 Land. 



Southern Franz Josef Land lies some 200 miles to the 

 east of Spitsbergen, and 270 miles north of Novaya Zemlya. 

 At the conclusion of this paper a comparison will be insti- 

 tuted between the bird-life of this region, which is the most 

 northerly — lying, as it does, between 80° and 82° 30' N. lati- 

 tude — and that of Novaya Zemlya and Spitsbergen. 



[Franz Josef Land is an archipelago of about one hundred 

 islands, mostly of very small size. The greater mass of the 

 land is completely and permanently ice-covered, though pro- 

 bably this covering is of no great thickness. Here and there 

 along the coast are narrow strips of non-glaciated land. 

 Cape Flora is one of these strips, and is more or less typical 

 of the whole series of headlands facing the Barents Sea, as 

 well as of many farther north, although to the N.W. the 

 land becomes lower. The strip of laud at Cape Flora 

 varies from about 200 yards to a quarter of a mile in 

 width ; the greater portion of this consists of a series of 

 raised beaches from the sea-level up to about 80 feet; from 



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