1922.] Birds of Spitsbergen and Bear Island. Ifi5 



hatched young on 10 July. Flightless Brent were associating 

 with Barnacle Geese and many Pink-footed Geese on 17 July, 

 1921, on a lagoon in the Sassen Valley. 



19. Branta leucopsis (Bechst.). Barnacle Goose. 



Till the date of Koenig's two expeditions in 1907 and 1908 

 we had no reliable information as to the breeding habits or 

 eggs of this species. In 1907 he found a small colony 

 nesting on "bastions" of rocks projecting from the side of 

 one of the valleys debouching on Advent Bay, and obtained 

 two nests with 5 and 4 eggs respectively, while in 1908 he 

 obtained a third nest with 3 eggs. These remained the only 

 fully authenticated specimens till 1921, when we had the 

 good fortnue to obtain no fewer than 5 nests, containing 22 

 eo-o-s, while others proved to bo inaccessible. The nests were 

 generally on moss-grown slopes at the foot of a steep bluff, 

 with another drop of 20 feet or more below, or on outlying 

 spurs of rock projecting over the valley below. There is 

 reason to believe that other nests were placed in even more 

 remarkable sites, as a Goose was seen to leave a hollow in 

 the face of an overhung cliff, and another bird was seen 

 apparently incubating on the top of a mushroom-shaped 

 pinnacle of rock at the summit of a high range of cliffs. We 

 have now good evidence of the breeding of this species, not 

 only in Advent Bay, but also in Sasseu Bay, Klaas Billen 

 Bay, and Dickson's Bay, while Ice Fjord appears to bo the 

 main breeding-ground of this fine species, though it certainly 

 also breeds in Wijde Bay, and probably in Bell Sound. 

 Evidently the same sites are resorted to year after year (as 

 is also the case with A. brachyrlii/nchus). and in some cases 

 even the same nesting hollow. The ganders of all three species 

 of Spitsbergen-breeding Geese are generally to be found 

 standing on guard by the side of their incubating mates. 

 Measurements of the 22 eggs taken by Mr. A. H. Paget 

 Wilkes and myself, together with Koenig's 12 eggs, give an 

 average of 7G"3 x 49'8 mm. ; max. 82"7 x 46*4 and 77*6 x 

 52-7 mm. ; min. 70-6 x 50 and 82-7 x 4G-4 mm. Two 

 flightless males were shot from a mixed flock of about GO 

 Geese in Sassen Valley on 17 July, 1921. 



