The Mammalia and Birds of Franz Josef Land. 103 



terrified yet defiant birds. Again they swooped down upon 

 us, and it seemed quite likely that at any moment they 

 might dash into our faces. So we passed on from gullery 

 to gallery among many thousands of these birds. It was 

 a magnificent sight ; the sun was shining brightly in a blue 

 sky, the air was clear, and these handsome birds in their 

 pure white plumage, added brilliancy to the scene. Each 

 nest is, as I have said, composed of a pile of moss, in shape a 

 truncated cone, and may be from 6 to 9 inches in height and 

 from 18 inches to 2 feet in diameter. There is no hollow on 

 the top of this more or less level pile, upon which the egg 

 is deposited, or the young bird sits. I noticed many dead 

 young birds, some quite recently deceased, for they were 

 still warm, while others had been dead for some time ; in 

 nearly every case their crania had been indented. Eight 

 young birds were taken on board alive : seven of these 

 reached the Thames on September 3rd, 1897, but next day 

 six of these were dead, and the remaining one found its way 

 to the Zoological Society's Gardens at Regent's Park. — 

 W. S. B.] 



16. *RlSSA TRIDACTYLA (Linn.). 



Payer, op. cit., ii. p. 90; Neale, Proc. Zool. Soc, 1882, pp. 653, 654; 

 Nansen, op. cit., ii. pp. 295, 350, 438. 



Mr Bruce's representatives of the Kittiwake consist of two 

 chicks, taken on the 20th of July 1897, and a half-grown bird 

 taken a week or two later — all from nests at Cape Flora. 



This bird is at least widely, if not generally, distributed 

 in Franz Josef Land. Dr Neale records it as breeding in 

 numbers in the south, at Cape Flora, in the summer of 1882; 

 and Dr Nansen observed it in the north-east, at the Isles 

 of Hvidtenland, on the 8th of August 1895. According to 

 Dr Neale, the Kittiwakes departed from Cape Flora, in the 

 autumn of 1881, about the 22nd of September, and returned 

 the following spring on the 6th of May. 



[I noted the last Kittiwakes seen in the autumn of 1896 

 for the 5th of October, when they came under the notice of 

 Mr Wilton. The first was observed in the spring of 1897 on 

 the 14th of April, and several were seen by Dr Koettlitz on 



