80 



NATURAL HISTORY OF BIRDS. 



in summer plumage, on July 1, 1879. None had been obtained by Americans, or had 

 found their way to any American collection, though all our earlier expeditions had been 

 on a sharp lookout for the rare and beautiful bird, until Mr. E. W. Nelson, the col- 

 lector of the U. S. National Museum, brought home from Alaska a young one 

 obtained at St. Michaels, Oct. 10, 1879. Three days earlier, in north latitude 71 50' 

 north of Siberia, on the ill-fated ' Jeannette,' Mr. R. L. Newcomb shot two in au- 

 tumnal plumage, and, during the drift of the vessel in the ice the following year, he 

 secured specimens in the latter part of June ; altogether he obtained eight birds. 

 But when he had to leave the doomed ship, " when it was a question of saving their 

 bare lives, and the necessaries of existence which each one of the shipwrecked crew 

 could carry had to be weighed literally by the ounce, Mr. Newcomb gallantly stuck to 

 three of these birds, and brought them in safety across Asia and Europe to the Smith- 



FIG. 34. Rhodostethia rosea, Ross's gull. 



sonian Institution." In the records of collecting, we can call to mind no similar 

 instance of bull-dog tenacity, remark the editors of " The Ibis," when commenting 

 upon the heroic deed. Finally, Mr. J. Murdoch, naturalist of the Point Barrow expe- 

 dition, collected a great number of adults and young during the latter part of 

 September and the beginning of October, 1882, when flocks, evidently migrating, 

 passed the Point, coming along the coast from the southwest. He sent home to the 

 National Museum a greater number of specimens than had ever been observed before. 

 For all that, nobody has yet found the breeding place, and no one has collected its 

 eggs or its downy young, or observed its habits ; nor have we any information con- 

 cerning where it spends the winter. But the mystery is not so great as it was ; 

 Ross's gull has been found all round the North Pole, and it is safe to predict that it 



