279 



being killed by the Finns in large numbers when they have moulted 

 their beam-feathers. This spedes is said to be the first to arrive 

 in the spring. 



The line of passage would appear to be easterly, stray 

 individuals only having been observed south of the Polar Circle 

 in the migratory period. 



Branta leucopsis, Bechst. 



On the 3rd July 1872, I observed an individual on Store Tamsø, 

 in the Porsangerfjord, swimming about in company with a number of 

 Somateria mollissima close to the shore of the island; but it took 

 wing before I could get within gunshot. A day or two after an 

 individual of the same species, which had just moulted the beam- 

 feathers, was caught alive on the island. This specimen I took 

 . with me to Christiania, but it died soon after, and is now pre- 

 servecl in the University Museum. It was a male: total length 

 694 mm; tail 130, tarsus 65, middle toe 56 -f- 11, culmen 40, from 

 nasal openings 19 mm. Normal summer dress. 



Whether this individual and the one I saw was the same 

 bird, I cannot pretend to say. Indeed there is still no proof of 

 the species having ever bred in Finmark, where, as far as I know, 

 one or two individuals only had hitherto been observed; but, on 

 the other hand, it is very seldom that a goose from that part of 

 the country, even one of the commonest species, is submitted 

 to a careful examination. The o"ccurrence of this species, almost 

 sporadical as it is in the artic regions of Greenland, Iceland, Spits- 

 bergen, and Novaja Zemlia, render it not improbable that single 

 pairs, retarded perhaps at first on their passage, remain behind 

 and breed on the outermost islands lying off the northern coast 

 of the continent. And this opinion derives additional support from 

 the following observation. 



In 1870 I procured from Borgevær — a well known „ Fugle- 

 vær" and „Fiskevær", facing the Arctic Ocean, on one of the most 

 northern of the Lofoten Islands (68° 15'), — through the kind- 

 ness of Mr. Irgens, the proprietor, two eggs — tåken that summer — 



