Section IX. On the Birds of Gough Island, South Atlantic Ocean.* 



By WM. EAGLE CLARKE, F.R.S.E., F.L.S., Keeper of the Department of 

 Natural History of the Royal Scottish Museum. 



WHEN homeward bound from the farthest southern point reached the newly discovered 

 Coats Land the Scottish National Antarctic Expedition paid a flying visit to Gough 

 Island, and made the collection of birds here described. This contains forty -five specimens, 

 and, with the Antarctic birds, has been placed in my hands for identification and record. 



Gough Island, or, to speak more correctly, Diego Alvarez (for such it was named by 

 its Portuguese discoverers), is situated in lat. 40 19' S. and long. 9 44' W. It lies far 

 out in the South Atlantic Ocean, being some 1500 miles W. by S. of the Cape of Good 

 Hope and about 2000 miles N. by E. of Cape Horn ; and, with the Tristan da Cunha 

 group, which lie over 200 miles to the northwards, is among the most remote of all 

 oceanic islands. It is small and uninhabited ; of volcanic origin ; from seven to eight 

 miles long, and from three to four wide ; and is lofty, rising to a height of 4380 feet. 



The island has been but little visited, except by sealers, who, in days gone by, 

 found it worthy of their attention ; and the Scotia's party were the first naturalists who 

 have ever set foot upon its fastnesses. 



Dr Harvey Pirie and Dr R. N. Rudmose Brown give the following description of 

 the island, and Mr D. W. Wilton gives me other valuable information : 



" Gough Island rises on every side abruptly from the ocean in sheer precipices 

 several hundred feet high. The general aspect of the island, as seen from ship-board, 

 is very beautiful, with its green slopes and moss- and lichen -covered cliffs, over which 

 numbers of rushing waterfalls shoot out into the sea with a drop of several hundred 

 feet. The only apparent landing-place is on the eastern side, where the party from the 

 Scotia landed. Here a ravine runs down from the interior to the coast, and along it 

 flows a small stream. Near the seaward end of this ravine are a few acres of level 

 ground covered with grass or, in the moister parts, with ferns and rankly growing 

 celery and docks. Here, too, is a narrow beach, perhaps a hundred yards long, strewn 

 with many large boulders and numerous fern-rhizomes of considerable size. At the 

 S. W. end of the island there appears to be a plateau of about half a square mile in 

 extent at an elevation of some 300 feet, but everywhere else the island rises into steep 

 ridges separated by narrow valleys, which must render its exploration a matter of 

 extreme difficulty. On the lower ground and up to a height of over 1 000 feet the island 

 is thickly covered with tussock-grass (Spartina ai'undinacea) and buckthorn-trees 



* Reprinted, with slight verbal alterations, from The Ibis, Series VIII., v., 1905, pp. 247-268. 



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