90 



THE OSPREY. 



National Museum, has been removed by death, 

 A'csoli't'd: That in Major Bendire's death the 

 National Museum suffers the loss of an officer 

 who took the keenest interest in his special 

 branch of work; whose constant aim was to im- 

 prove and develop the department under 

 his charge; and to whose unfailing interest the 

 present admirable condition of +he oological 

 collection is due. 



Resolved: That in his death the National 

 Museum has lost a valued member of its Scien- 



tific vStafF, whose place it will be difficult to 

 fill, and American Ornithology has been robbed 

 of one of its most earnest workers. 



The splendid portrait of Major Bendire, 

 which we are able to present, is by the 

 kindness of Dr. A. K. Fisher, of the 

 United States Department of Ag-riculture. 

 It was made about 1884, and represents 

 him essentially as he has been known 

 since his retirement from active military 

 life. 



Nansen's Discovery of the Breeding Grounds of the Rosy Gull, 



BY DR. T. S. PALMER. 



Of the result of Nansen's Expedition 

 thus far announced one of the most in- 

 terestini!;", at least to ornitholog^ists, is 

 the reported discovery of the breeding- 

 grounds of Ross' Gull, also known as the 

 Wedg-e-tailed or Rosy Gull { Rhodostethia 

 rosea). In a letter published in the Lon- 

 don Daily Chronicle last November, Dr. 

 Nansen stated that he found flocks of Rosy 

 Gulls on Aug-ust bth, in latitude eig-hty- 

 one degrees thirty-eig-ht minutes, east 

 long-itude sixty-three degrees. The birds 

 were seen near four small islands called 

 "Hirtenland" by Nansen, a little north- 

 east of Franz Josef Land. While Nansen 

 did not actually find nests, he found the 

 birds abundant, and concluded that their 

 nests were probably near by. Every 

 item of information regarding this rare 

 bird is of interest, and in the December 

 number of the Ornitholoo-isciie Monats- 

 herichte (pp. 193-196), Dr.' Herman Scha- 

 low calls attention to the importance of 

 Nansen's announcement and takes occa- 

 sion to review briefly the history of the 

 species. 



There seems to be no reason to question 

 the correctness of Nansen's determine^tion 

 of the birds or his surmise that they were 

 breeding- not far away. The wedg-e- 

 shaped tail and the rosy tinge of the plu- 

 mage (both noted by Nansen ) are unmis- 

 takable characters of the species, and the 

 presence of the Gulls in such numbers in 

 that hig-h latitude renders it very prob- 

 able that they were breeding. The Rosy 

 Gull has long- remained one of the rarest 

 Gulls. It was described from a specimen 

 collected by Sir James Clark Ross in 

 1823, on Melville Peninsula, but in the 

 next half century only a few individuals 



were taken and these in widely separate^l 

 localities. In the autumn of 1881 Mur- 

 doch observed large numbers at Point 

 Barrow, Alaska, apparently migrating 

 from the west to the northeast. Al- 

 though he secured a good series of speci- 

 mens, he could add little to the life history 

 of the species, and no other naturalist in 

 Alaska has had the good fortune to meet 

 with it in such numbers. This Gull has 

 also been taken in North America, at St. 

 Michael's, Alaska, and Disco Bay, Green- 

 land, but it was not seen by the Lady 

 Franklin Bay Expedition. It was met 

 with olf the Siberian coast by the Jean- 

 nette Expedition, and was recorded by 

 Payer between Nova Zembla and Franz 

 Josef Land, only a few degrees to the 

 south of the islands where Nansen 

 found it. 



The Rosy Gull is a typical arctic cir- 

 cumpolar bird, reaching a latitude at- 

 tained by few other species, and specimens 

 taken outside the Arctic Circle ( at St. 

 Michael's, Kamschatka, the P^a^roe Islands, 

 Heligoland, and Yorkshire, England ) 

 can only be regarded as stragglers. No 

 one has yet been able to explain what 

 becomes of the thousands which pass 

 Point Barrow in the autumn, and less is 

 known of the winter home of this Gull 

 than of the region where it breeds. Mur- 

 doch supposed that its breeding grounds 

 were somewhere north of Wrangel Isl- 

 and. Nansen's observations seem to in- 

 dicate that they are much farther to the 

 west, but, as Schalow remarks, "when 

 will man's foot again tread the dreary 

 wastes of those high latitudes where one 

 of the greatest rarities of northern oology 

 is to be found. — [^Science.^ 



