Vol i906 in ] Recent Literature. 349 



to observe them and procure specimens whenever he wished. Later 

 he "found the Rosy Gull nesting in little colonies of from two or three 

 to ten or fifteen pairs, in company with the Black-capped Tern of the 

 delta." From June 3 onward the gulls became scarce on the river, and 

 were dispersed over the delta, "though the snow was still deep in the 

 bushy portions and the ice had only melted for a distance of a fathom 

 or two from the banks." On the 13th of June several clutches of eggs, 

 all somewhat incubated, were taken. The last four clutches, taken 

 June 26, "were so much incubated that the embryros were covered with 

 down, and would have been hatched in a very few days." 



"One of the colonies was on a piece of wet tundra near two lakes, a 

 square kilometer in extent, covered with a labyrinth of pools of snow- 

 water from two to six or even ten inches deep, but practicable in wading- 

 boots, thanks to its floor of everlasting ice beneath the underlying mud. 

 Between these pools, which were from fifteen to fifty feet in diameter, were 

 pieces of very wet ground covered with Carices, damp mossy spots, and 

 even tiny patches of comparatively dry bog covered with lichens or Betula 

 nana. In this colony I found ten nests of Rodostethia, placed, among 

 those of the Tern, on little mossy swamps almost bare of grass, evidently 

 because the more grassy places were too wet and unsafe. But in the 

 remaining colonies the state of affairs was otherwise; there the Tern 

 nested on the moss — sometimes making no nest at all — and laid its 

 one or two eggs much nearer to the dry parts of the little islands, which 

 were perhaps a hundred yards long and from ten to twenty yards wide, 

 while the Rosy Gulls made their nests on wet grassy spots or bogs much 

 nearer to the water, and these nests rose from four to ten inches — gen- 

 erally from five to eight inches — above the surface. The hollow formed 

 in the grass (dead grass of course, as green grass is hardly ever seen by 

 the 20th of June) is about six or seven inches in diameter, but the nest 

 proper is a hollow cup only about four or four and a half inches in diameter. 

 It is composed of dry grass and Carices, sometimes with the addition of 

 a few dry Betula or Salix leaves, while I once saw one made of white 

 reindeer-moss." The number of eggs is nearly always three, but some- 

 times only two, while four are said to be often found. Downy young 

 were taken July 6 and 7. 



Dr. Buturlin gives a description of the eggs and of the downy young, 

 and of the habits of the birds while at their breeding-grounds. In regard 

 to their breeding range along this part of the Arctic coast, he states that 

 "all the lowlands of the northern half of the Kolyma district (bordered 

 by the rivers Chaun and Alazeya, the Arctic Ocean and the Stanovoi 

 Mountains) are inhabited by Rodostethia rosea, and this area covers at 

 least 160,000 square kilometers. In the eastern parts of the Verkhoyansk 

 district it probably breeds up to the Indigirka River." 



The account of this important discovery was written in the field, in 

 two parts, dated respectively June 30 and July 10, 1905. — J. A. A. 



