THE ZOOLOGIST. 



THIRD SERIES. 



Vol. VI.] SEPTEMBER, 1882. [No. 69. 



NOTES OF A NATURALIST ON THE WEST COAST OF 



SPITZBERGEN. 



By Alfred Heneage Cocks, M.A., F.Z.S. 



The publications of Prof. Newton, " On the Birds of Spitz- 

 bergen,"* and "On the Zoology of Spitzbergen,"t as well as of 

 the Swedish Professors Malmgren and Nordenskibld, in addition 

 to works by numerous other writers during the last two centuries 

 (a list of which is given by Prof. Newton in ' The Ibis '), have 

 made the Ornithology of that country pretty well known; yet 

 even in this tolerably worked-out class I was able during a short 

 visit which I paid to Spitzbergen last summer to add two species 

 not previously, I believe, obtained there. As my visit was con- 

 fined to the best known side, the west coast, and as I was only 

 about nine days actually in Spitzbergen waters, much novelty 

 must not be looked for in the present paper : its chief claim to 

 interest rests simply in being a record, however imperfect, of 

 what was to be seen in that out-of-the-way region as lately as 

 last summer. Among my fellow-tourists was Mr. Abel Chapman, 

 of Sunderland, to whose notes I am indebted for the better portion 

 of the facts here stated. 



At the risk of making this communication somewhat long, 

 I have thought it best to begin by giving, as shortly as possible, 

 a narrative of the voyage from the time of leaving Tromso (we 

 sailed originally from Bergen) to the time of the return of the 



* ' Ibis,' April, 1865. t P*oc. Zool. Soc, 1864. 



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