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CHAPTER XXII. 
SPITSBERGEN. 
I. Preliminary Remarks. 
Spitsbergen in summer is now fairly well known, which 
was hardly the case when I first visited the Arctic Seas 
in 1881 , though the researches of Scoresby, Lamont, 
Newton, and other voyagers had left little to discover, 
at least in ornithology. 
Of personal experience, for these reasons, I do not 
propose to write, albeit brief impressions remain ever 
vivid, and bequeath a bitter regret that I have never had 
the opportunity of tackling the Arctic in solid earnest. 
The avifauna of Spitsbergen—marvellous as it is 
in the aggregate—consists, when analyzed, of but some 
thirty species, and these chiefly rock-fowl, such as Guille¬ 
mots, Puffins, Auks, and Fulmars, with Kittiwakes, 
Glaucous and Ivory Gulls, Skuas, and Terns. Of land- 
birds there are but four—one raptor, the Snowy Owl; 
one game-bird, the Spitsbergen grouse ( L . hemileucurus ), 
together with Snow-Buntings and Redpolls. Of wild¬ 
fowl, there breed the Pinkfooted, the Brent, and Bernicle 
Geese, Eiders and Longtailed Ducks, with a very small 
contingent of the sandpiper tribe, one phalarope, and 
one of the divers ( Colymhi ). 
