28 CAPT. H. W. FEILDEN ON THE BIRDS OF (Jan. 16, 
January 16, 1877. 
Professor Newton, F.R.S., V.P., in the Chair. 
Mr. Sclater exhibited a collection of Mammals, Birds, and Insects 
which had been formed by the Rev. George Brown, C.M.Z.S., during 
his recent residence in Duke-of-York Island and his excursions to 
the neighbouring islands of New Britain and New Ireland, with the 
assistance of a collector, Mr. Cockerell. The general facies of the 
collection was strongly Papuan. Mr. Sclater pointed out the great 
interest which attached to the fauna of these islands, as showing 
many representatives of some of the most marked characteristic 
forms of New Guinea, and promised further details, on the collections 
which had been transmitted to him to be worked out, at a future 
meeting of the Society. 

A communication was read from Mr. G. Krefft, C.M.Z.S., con- 
taining some notes on a young example of Casuarius australis living 
in Sydney, which was destined for the Society’s Collection. 
_ 

The following papers were read :— 
1. On the Birds of the North Polar Basin. 
By Capt. H. W. Fuinpen, C.M.Z.S. 
[Received January 16, 1877.] 
I shall endeavour in the few remarks I make this evening to draw 
your attention especially to the distribution of bird-life along the 
shores of the Polar Basin between the latitudes of 82° and 83°, the 
most northern land ever yet visited by human beings. I shall not 
allude to the ornithology of the West-Greenland shores and that of 
Baffin’s Bay, which we are well acquainted with through the labours 
of Sabine, Holbéll, Reinhardt, and several other excellent Danish 
naturalists ; but I will take you at one step to the 78° of N. lat. and 
draw your attention to the area lying between the 60° and 75° of W. 
long., and as far north as the 83rd parallel of N. lat., which embraces 
Smith’s Sound, Kane’s Basin, Kennedy Channel, Hall’s Basin, Robe- 
son Channel, and part of the shores of the great frozen Polar Basin. 
After pushing through the middle pack of Melville Bay and entering 
the ‘North Water” of the whalers, which usually extends in the 
summer months from Cape York to Cape Alexander, Arctic voyagers © 
have always been impressed with the enormous numbers of the Little 
Auk (Mergulus alle) which frequent this region, attracted no doubt 
by the vast amount of suitable food which it contains. Mergulus 
alle breeds in countless numbers in the cliffs around Port Foulke; 
and for a most graphic account of the Aukeries I refer you to Dr. 
Hayes’s description published in his interesting volume ‘The Open 
Polar Sea.’ At Port Foulke we found the surface-temperature of 
