348 STERCORARIUS POMATORHINUS.—S. PARASITICUS. 
[§ 4691. Zwo.—28 June, 
1903. 
1903. 
Tlerr Koren wrote to Mr. Marsden, on the 6th of December, 1903, that 
Prof, Birkeland’s expedition, to which these collectors were attached, took up 
its abode in Nova Zembla in August 1902, returning thence in July 1903. 
“The Lestris pomarina builds in the same terrain as Tringa minuta (ef. 
§§ 3972, 3973), but is a very shy bird, and it is very difficult to find the nest, 
quite contrary to the other species of Lestris.” Subsequently Herr Schaanning 
wrote to me (2 January, 1904) concerning these particular eggs. Those taken 
on the 2nd of July belonged to a pair of birds both of which were entirely 
black, and were retained by Prof. Collett for the Museum of Christiania. In 
all the other pairs whose nests they found the male had the belly white, the 
female more or less spotted with black, and in two cases wholly black. The 
single egg of the 14th of July was quite fresh, whereas all the others were 
neatly ready to hatch. Herr Schaanning continues (translated) :— At the 
nest both birds are extraordinarily shy and wary. The female leaves the nest 
already at a distance of 2000 métres, when anyone approaches. It never 
attacks an intruder like Z. parasitica and L. buffoni, but sweeps round him 
in great circles, alighting here and there on the marsh. The eggs are thus 
extraordinarily hard to find, and I do not exaggerate when I say that the 
longest time I ever took in finding a bird’s nest is that which I spent on the first 
nest of Z. pomarina (§ 4091). Except in two instances there were two eggs 
in the nests observed. They lay without bedding on a hillock, often moist, 
in the wettest part of the great grassy marsh, sometimes so that the hillock 
was a little island, being surrounded by water on all sides. Ini seven nests of 
two eggs each the first was found to have been laid on the 26th, 28th (two), 
and 80th (two) of June, and the Ist and 2nd of July, and in two nests of one 
egg each this was laid on the 12th and 14th July. In this tendra-district, 
intersected by numerous high ridges, and thus forming many valleys, there is 
scarcely more than a single pair of birds in each depression.” | 
] 
| Pomorskaja  { From 
Bay HH. Kor 
[§ 4692. Zwo.—2 July, | ee, | me ws 
1903 \ Mataschkin- , Schaanning, 
<a | schar, | through 
Nova Zembla. | Mx. Marsden. 
[§ 4693. One,—14 July, | 
J 
STERCORARIUS PARASITICUS (Tunstall, cx Linnzo). 
ARCTIC GULL. 
§ 4694. Ove.—From Mr. Hewitson, through Mr. Wilmot, 
1846, 
