412 TEN YEARS IN SWEDEN. 



been a solitary individual, which by some chance had flown 

 there and died of hunger, for not a single specimen has ever 

 been seen since, nor is it probable that a bird which lives on 

 insects (coleoptera) y and their larvae, could find nourishment 

 for itself and family in a land where only twelve to fifteen 

 small and rare insects are met with, and not one of these 

 are coleoptera. 



4. That the Grey Lag Goose breeds on Spitzbergen, as 

 stated by Torell, must be a mistake, because this species 

 does not belong to the Arctic fauna. In Sweden and Fin- 

 land it does not go over the Polar circle. (How is it, then, 

 that, according to Sommerfeldt, the grey lag geese are seen 

 on the coast of North-east Finland, in the spring, on their 

 way to their breeding places on Tamsoe, in West Finmark ?) 

 A seal shooter told him that, two years before, he shot a 

 swan in a trask near Stor Fjord. This was probably a 

 Bewick's swan, which has a higher northern range than the 

 common wild swan. 



5. The Pomarine Skua. Captain Eoss mentions that he 

 saw a pomarine skua fly by the boat on this coast, in 

 82 north lat. But this species has never been seen here by 

 any one since. It breeds in Prince Regent's Inlet and in 

 Taimyr Land. More frequent in North Greenland and the 

 north of Scandinavia, but rare on Iceland and the Faroes. 



Birds which should be expunged from the fauna of Spitz- 

 bergen, in which they have been placed through mistaken 

 observations. 



1. Fringilla Linaria, Scoresby. Without doubt the bird 

 which Scoresby took for this species must be some other 

 one, because it is against all nature to suppose that F. 

 Linaria should live on Spitzbergen, where it could not find 

 nourishment for a single day. It was most probably nothing 

 else than the young of the snow bunting. 



2. Common Sandpiper. Must have been another mis- 

 take of Scoresby's. 



3. Sabine's Gull. } Way gat Straits, where these birds 



4. Boss's Gull. j are reported to have been seen, was 



