BIRDS OF KOLGUEV 421 



It was there distinctly a bird of the peat, in the hummocks of which 

 it nested. On June 24, we first found a nest with eggs — four in 

 number. By August 3rd, they were in small lots of a few families 

 together, by the end of that month in large flocks, and by the second 

 week in August scarcely one was to be seen in the neighbourhood of 

 Scharok. 



Otocorys alpestris linn. Shore Lark. 

 Javronok-snejng (R.). Sislo (S.). 



This bird was exceedingly abundant and universally distributed. We 

 found a nest ready for eggs on June 16, and the first one containing 

 eggs (four in number) on June 27, made of grass and lined with pappus 

 of nardosmia frigida. 



strigim: 



Nyctea scandiaca (linn.). Snowy Owl. 

 Sowa bielaya (R.). Hei-nib-chur (S.). 



The snowy owl, there seems good reason to believe, does not nest 

 on Kolguev. The Samoyeds all agreed that they had never known an 

 instance. The snowy owl is always sporadic as a breeding species, but 

 I have no explanation to offer of this consistent non-occurrence as such, 

 which, but for Colonel Feilden's observations on the habits of this bird 

 in Spitzbergen, 1 I should have attributed to the absence of the lemming. 

 I saw our first snowy owl on June 17, the day after our final landing. 

 It was a dark bird, probably a hen. As it skimmed over a little mere it 

 stooped to pick something — no doubt a fish— out of the water. I was 

 watching it though my glass, and saw it drop its feet and secure the 

 quarry. It then sat on the bank looking over its shoulder at us with the 

 prey under its foot. A red-throated diver swam up and down close in 

 front of the bird with its bill wide open, evidently chiding it, though no 

 sound reached us because of the distance. My notes of the occurrence 

 of the snowy owl are too many to give. Its numbers increased towards 

 the middle of July, and thereafter it was daily in evidence. At first, all 



1 The Zoologist, March 1895. 



