Avifauna of Franz Josef Land. 253 



this level up to about 600 feet is a talus^ made up of 

 the debris that has crumbled away from the crags above, 

 which consist of several layers of columnar basalt. Above 

 this rises a dome of ice 1200 or 1300 feet high, which 

 sweeps away mainly to the N.W., where it comes down to 

 the sea, forming an ice-face in summer of from about 5 to 

 15 feet in height above water. The lower more or less 

 flat ground {i. e. tbe 50 to 80 feet raised beaches) is swampy 

 to the eastward, and in one or two places to the west- 

 ward as well. At Elm wood, midway, there is a fresh- 

 water pond ; there is also a series of pools at the west end 

 which we knew as the West Ponds. Nearly all this ground 

 is covered with a rich carpet of grass, saxifrages, ranuncu- 

 luses, poppies, &c. In the wetter places there is a very rich 

 growth of mosses, and only in a very few places, as near 

 Elmwood, is the ground bare and stony. This level ground 

 is cut through deeply in many places by a series of gullies, 

 which are watercourses, running down the talus and across 

 this narrow plain. The talus is green with grasses, poppies, 

 scurvy-grass, &c. ; and at its summit, underneath the crags, 

 is very green with an algous and mossy growth that appears 

 to thrive upon the dung of the Looms. The crags them- 

 selves are richly covered with a red lichen, which is probably 

 also largely enriched by the droppings of the bird. The 

 Windy Gully rocks and talus lie to the E.N.E. of Cape 

 Flora. 



The Snow-Buntings build on the 50 to 80 feet raised 

 beaches in the places described, and probably also on the 

 talus. The Purple Sandpipers and. Skuas also nest on this 

 lower ground in the drier places. In the rocks above are 

 Looms, Rotges, Kittiwakes, and Burgomasters. 



The birds of Franz Josef Land, though plentiful as indi- 

 viduals, are not so numerous in species as in many other 

 parts of the Arctic Regions. Those that we found nesting 

 there were the Loom, the Rotge, the Black Guillemot 

 (Dovekie), the Burgomaster Gull, the Kittiwake, the Ivory 

 Gull, the Arctic Skua, the Fulmar Petrel, the Eider Duck, 

 the Snow-Bunting, and the Purple Sandpiper. 



