September 29, 192 1] 



NATURE 



»5i 



sightseer — the man or woman who "has never 

 seen the moon through a telescope." This is 

 scarcely possible with the present small staff, but 

 if ways and means could be found it would be well 

 worth while for other observatories to be among 

 the subscribers to the corporation, if they could 

 thereby transfer a part or the whole of their 



embarrassments from sightseers. It is worth re- 

 marking that the situation of the Norman Lockyer 

 Observatory would probably attract this type of 

 visitor, who naturally expects to climb a tower 

 or a hill, and would not be disappointed. But we 

 should prefer to lay stress on the more serious 

 uses of the observatorv. 



The Oxford Expedition to Spitsbergen, 1921. 

 Ornithological Observations. 

 By the Rev. F. C. R. Jourdain (Leader of the Expedition). 



ALTHOUGH the collections made by members 

 of the expedition have not yet been worked 

 out, it is now possible to form some idea of the 

 extent to which our knowledge of the Spitsbergen 

 group has been increased by the Oxford Expedi- 

 tion of 192 1. Owing to difficulties caused by 

 industrial unrest both in England and Norway, 

 the original plans had to be consideraJDly modified, 

 and it was agreed to carry out a biological survey 

 of the southern half of Bear Island, with special 

 reference to the ornithology, before proceeding to 

 the west coast of Spitsbergen. 



Practically no work of any importance in this 

 field has ever before been undertaken by English- 

 men, and no collections from here exist in any 

 British museum. The only important works on 

 the ornithology of this most interesting, but 

 somewhat inaccessible, spot are Swenander's 

 " Beitrage zur Fauna der Baren-Insel," published 

 in the K. Svenska Vet-Akad. Handl., Bd. xxvi. 

 (1900), and some passages in the great work of 

 Koenig, "Avifauna Spitzbergensis " (iQ^i)- 

 Swenander visited Bear Island in 1899, and 

 recorded twenty-two species, while Koenig 

 increased the number to thirty-six, but some of 

 these rest on rather dubious evidence. 



The northern half of Bear Island is flat, and 

 covered with innumerable lagoons, but the 

 southern half is hilly, and the coast line consists 

 almost entirely of bold cliffs, which are the resort 

 of millions of sea birds. It is this portion of the 

 island which was investigated by the expedition. 

 Two hitherto unrecorded breeding species were 

 recognised in 192 1, and both cases are of great 

 interest as filling up gaps in the distribution of 

 the species concerned. Additions were also made 

 to the list of casual visitors, but more important 

 was the acquisition of a series of nearly eighty 

 skins of breeding species and more than 300 eggs 

 from the island. Equally valuable are the bio- 

 logical notes on the share of the sexes in incuba- 

 tion, the courtship and breedine" habits, of which 

 very little has been recorded in the case of these 

 Arctic species. 



Actual work on the Spitsbergen group did not 

 begin until June 25. Here, again, it must be 

 remembered that the latest English work on the 

 ornithology of Spitsbergen is Mr. Trevor Battye's 

 paper in the This, 1897, pp. 574-600. No series of 

 skins from here with any pretension to complete- 

 NO. 2709. VOL. I08I 



ness exists in any British museum. The eggs of 

 the Barnacle Goose have previouslv been taken 

 by only one expedition, viz. that of Prof. Koenig 

 in 1907 and 1908, and the twelve eggs then 

 obtained were the only wild-laid eggs known to 

 science till the present season, when twenty-two 

 eggs were obtained by the Oxford Expedition. 



[Photo, Settm Gordon. 



Fic. I. — Red-tbroated diver on nest. 



Mr. J. S. Huxley's researches on the courtship 

 of the Red-throated Diver {Colymhus stellatus) 

 (Fig. i) and the Grey Phalarope {Phalaropus 

 fulicarius) are referred to later, and need not be 

 touched upon here. 



In Mr. Trevor Battye's paper only twenty-nine 

 species were recorded from all sources. Since 

 then the total has been raised to fifty-three, and 



