Eggs of the Ivory Gull (Gavia alba). — The National Museum at 
Washington, D. C., has recently received a set of two eggs, of the rare 
Ivory Gull ( Gavia alba). A short description of these may be of interest 
to the readers of ‘The Auk.’ These eggs were taken, with seventeen 
others, at Storoen (Great Island) on the northeast coast of Spitzbergen. 
in 8 o° 9 ' north latitude, by Captain E. Johannsen, of Tromso, Norway, 
who found a small colony of these birds breeding there, and secured a 
number of the adult and young of this species, as well as the above men¬ 
tioned number of eggs, on August 8 , 1887 . All the eggs taken contained 
large embryos, and were on the point of hatching. It is remarkable 
that birds should nest so late, in such a climate and so near the pole. 
Previous to this find, but four eggs of this species were known to science. 
According to Mr. Henry Seebohm, the distinguished English ornitholo¬ 
gist, these are deposited as follows : One egg, obtained by Mc’Clintock, 
in the Museum of the Royal Dublin Society; two eggs, obtained by 
Malmgren, are in the Slockholm Museum, and a fourth is in the collection 
of Mr. Benzon in Copenhagen. Mr. Seebohm describes the specimen in 
the Dublin Museum as measuring 2.45 inches in length and 1.70 inch 
in breadth. Ground color buffish olive, and the surface markings, which 
are distributed over the entire shell, as dark and pale brown, and the 
underlying markings, which are very large and conspicuous, as violet 
gray. See ‘History of British Birds,’ by Henry Seebohm, Vol. Ill, pp. 
337-339- 
The two eggs in the National Museum Collection measure 2.36 X 1.76 
and 2.26 X 1.67 inches respectively. Their ground color is buffish olive; 
in one egg, somewhat paler, perhaps more of an olive drab tint. The 
surface markings, more or less irregularly distributed over the entire egg, 
vary from clove-brown to bistre. The underlying or shell-markings vary 
from slate to lilac-gray in tint, and predominate in the larger specimen. 
In the smaller and darker one, both styles of markings are about equally 
distributed. The two kinds of spots vary considerably in size and shape. 
—Ciias. E. Bendire, Washington, D. C. Auk, V. April 1888* p,ZQX~ 3 
