50 GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF CANADA. 



{Arct. Man.) Common in Roes Welcome, ^bout Whale point and 

 on the Southampton side. Flies with the arctic terns and also 

 builds its nests along with these birds on the -small islands in the 

 ponds of Southampton. {A. P. Low.) Occasional as far south 

 along the Labrador coast as Cow Head, Newfoundland. {Reeks.) 



Quite a large number of nests were found on the shores of 

 Franklin bay, and a few eggs were also received from the Eskimos 

 of Liverpool bay on the Arctic coast. {Macfarla?ie.) Breeding on 

 low islands off the west coast of Greenland and westward to Mel- 

 ville peninsula. {Richardson) Taken at Okanagan, B.C. by Brooks. 

 {Kermode.) Found breeding abundantly in the low grounds 

 between St. Michael and Bristol bay, Alaska. (^Turner.) This 

 gull is especially numerous along the Alaskan coast from the 

 Kuskoquim mouth to Kotzebue sound, and occurs in small num- 

 bers at St. Lawrence island. {Nelson) Osgood found a dead 

 bird of this species on the shores of Chilcat inlet, Alaska, June ist, 

 1899. {Bishop) Possibly of regular occurrence on St. Paul island, 

 Bering sea. Several were taken during the summer of 1896, and 

 one was shot on St. George island in June, i8go. {Palmer.) 



Breeding Notes.— On June 13th, 1880, about twenty miles from 

 St. Michael while egging in company with some Eskimos we found 

 a pond some 200 yards across, in the middle of which was two. 

 small islands. A gun-shot caused at least one hundred of these 

 gulls to rise like a white cloud over the islet and showed us that 

 we had found a breeding place. On going to the largest island 

 my Eskimo called out that the ground was covered with gull's 

 eggs. The Eskimo found the water waist deep and under it a 

 solid bed of ice of unknown depth. He carried me over on his 

 back, as I desired to see the nests of these birds, never having 

 seen them. The island was very low, and the driest spots were 

 but a little above the water. Built on the driest places were 

 twenty-seven nests, containing from one to three eggs each, and 

 as many others ready for occupancy. Four or five nests were 

 frequently placed within two or three feet of each other. In 

 about one half the cases the eggs were laid upon the few grass 

 blades the spot afforded, with no alterations save a slight depres- 

 sion made by the bird's body. In the majority of the other nests 

 a few grass blades and stems had been arranged circularly about 



