11.] 
GOOSELAND, 
73 
The female hatches the eggs, bat the male also remains in the 
neighbourhood of the nest. Along with the swans and geese, a 
large number of waders, a couple of species of Lestris, an owl 
and other birds breed on the plains of Gooseland, and a few 
guillemots or gulls upon the summits of the strand cliffs. The 
avdfauna along the coast here is besides rather poor. At least 
there are none of the rich fowl-fells, which, with their millions 
of inhabitants and the conflicts and quarrels which rage amongst 
them, commonly give so peculiar a character to the coast 
cliffs of the high north. I first met with true loom and 
kittiwake fells farther north on the southern shore of Besim- 
manaja Bay. 
Although Gooseland, seen from a distance, appears quite level 
and low, it yet rises gradually, with an undulating surface, from 
the coast towards the interior, to a grassy plain about sixty metres 
above the sea-level, with innumerable small lakes scattered over 
it. The plain sinks towards the sea nearly everywhere with a 
steep escarpment, three to fifteen metres high, below which 
there is formed during the course of the winter an immense 
snowdrift or so-called snow-foot,” which does not melt until 
late in the season. There are ro true glaciers here, nor any 
erratic Mocks^ to show .that circumstances lucre different in former 
times. Nor' are any snow-covered mountain-tops visible from 
the sea. It is therefore possible at a certain season of the 
year (during the whole of the month of August) to sail from 
Norway to Novaya Zemlya, make sporting excursions thei’e, 
and return without having seen a trace of ice or snow. This 
holds good indeed only of the low-lying part of the south island, 
but in any case it shows how erroneous the prevailing idea of 
the natural state of Novaya Zemlya is. By the end of June 
or beginning of July the greater part of Gooseland is nearly 
free of snow, and soon after the Arctic flower-world develops 
during a few weeks all its splendour of colour. Dry, favourably 
situated spots are now covered by a low, but exceedingly rich 
