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200 



LONG-WINGED SWIMMERS — LONGIPENNES. 



Professor Newton believes that the Ivory Gull breeds sporadically on many other 

 parts of Spitzbergen proper. Several of the birds shot in Ice Sound and the Stor 

 Fjord had their bellies bared of feathers, as is the case with sitting birds ; and his 

 pilot informed him that a shiii's boat, which in 1857 succeeded in reaching Gilies 

 Land, found the nests of many Ivory Gulls on its lonely shore. This bird probably 

 does not always breed in colonies; and as it selects the inaccessible j)laces, an occa- 

 sional nest here and there on the mountains or crags might well escape notice. 



J'rofessor E.Percival Wright {•' Ibi:i " 18GC, p. L'lO) states that (Jomniodore MeClin- 

 tock, on his return from the Ar(;tic exiieditiou of 1852-1X53, among the very few 

 specimens of natural history he was able to retain, brought home Avith him ou(! 

 egg of the Ivory Gull. An extract from McClintock's Diary is given, from whicli 

 it appears that from the 12th to the 15th of June he examined the Polynia Islands, 

 lat. 78°, which are composed entirely of gravel, none of them being more than sixty 

 feet above the sea. Upon one he saw two old nests of this species. They wen- 

 chiefly made of moss, and a larger quantity of this material had been used in +a(ir 

 construction than he had seen growing ujion the whole group. The broken pieces of 

 eggshells which the nests contained were of a pale olive color, with irregular dark- 

 brown blotches. On the 18th of June, as he was rounding Cape Krabbe, on the east 

 shore of Prince Patrick's Island, he saw an Ivory Gull sitting on her nest, on a bare 

 patch of gravel near the beach. There was a single egg in the nest, which was ex- 

 actly like those seen on the Polynia Islands ; only, in addition to the moss, there was 

 a little white down, and also a few feathers in it. This egg is now in the Museum 

 of the Koyal Society of Dublin. 



Mr. G. Gillett found this species in abundance on Nova Zembla wherever there 

 was ice. He did not see any of its breeding-places, nor could he detect any other 

 than adult birds. He mentions having frequently seen them settle on the water. 

 Von Heuglin reports this bird as being present, but in small numbers, in Matthews 

 Strait and along the west coast of Nova Zembla. 



Dr. Alexander Carte contributed to the Dublin Royal Society a paper relative 

 to the nidilication of this species, in which this bird is mentioned as being almost 

 exclusively resident in the Arctic Regions of both hemispheres, seldom visiting more 

 temperate climes. In addition to those instances of its occurrence in England ami 

 elsewhere which have already been mentioned. Dr. Carte cites eight others of its 

 being taken in other parts of Great Britain, and still others of its capture in Ireland 

 Captain Scoresby is qu( ted as characterizing it as being quite as ravenous as tlie 

 Fulmar, and as little nice in the choice of its food. It is, however, somewhat mori' 

 cautious than that bird ; and while it is a constant attendant on the operations of 

 the whale-fishers, it generally seizes its portion on the wing. It rarely alights on 

 the water, but often sits on the ice, preferring the most elevated situations. Its cry 

 is a loud and disagreeable scream. Captain McClintock, in his Diary, mentions that, 

 in lat. 77° N., long. 116° W., he discovered around a nest of this bird the remains of 

 the bleached bones of the Myodes hudsonius, and also fresh pellets consisting of their 

 hair and bones, showing that this bird preys upon that animal. 



Sir John Richardson saw this Gull breeding in great numbers on the high perfor- 

 ated cliffs that form the extremity of Cape Parry, in latitude 70° ; but he was unable 

 to obtain any specimens of its eggs. A quotation is given from the Diary of Captain 

 McClintock, in which he mentions meeting with three species of Gull in the Arctic 

 Regions, the Ivory Gull appearing the earliest of all, and being found the farthest 

 north. The first seen and shot was on the 12th of June, in lat. 77° 45' N., long. 

 116° W. Eight were noticed, all of them on Prince Patrick's Land. 



1 •' 



