DESCRIPTIONS OF NESTS AND EGGS. 
Neats. In niches among the boulders or in bowers excavated beneath the snow. “ Small grottoes 
in the snowdrifts.” 
Egg. Clutch one. Pointed oval to ellipse in shape ; dull white and lustreless ; shell rather fine¬ 
grained. 75 to 79 mm. by 48 to 50. Like the eggs of TJialassoica , but finer-grained and 
larger. 
An egg collected by R. A. Ardley on South Orkney Islands, on January 8th, 1933, 
is pointed oval in shape, white and lustreless, with numerous pittings all over the shell. 
It measures 73.5 by 50.5. 
Breeding-season. December and January ; Stillwell Island, off Adelie Land, December 30th, 1913, 
and at Penguin Point on Adelie Land, December 31st, 1912. South Orkney Islands January. 
Phcebetna fusca. SOOTY ALBATROSS. 
Plioebetria fasca. Mathews, Birds Norfolk and Lord Howe Islands, p. 109, Oct. 16th, 1928. 
W hile sitting on their nests the birds keep up a continual cry, similar to that 
of a young goat. In this they resemble P. palpebrata , and their nesting habits 
are somewhat similar. They are mostly seen soaring high upon the cliffs, never 
low down like the other Albatrosses. 
Nest. Placed on cliffs or projecting rocks. Built of grass and mud cemented together, they are 
small and low structures. Outside measurements : 4 to 8 inches high by 15 to 18 across. 
Inside : 3 inches deep by a foot across. These birds do not nest in colonies, but each nest 
is by itself. 
Eggs. Clutch one, chalky-white, broadly ovoidal in shape, resembles the egg of exulans ; speckled 
on the larger end with reddish dots. 100-106 mm. by 66. 
Breeding-season. From September or even August (generally October to December). The young 
birds leave the nest in April. (Gough Island and the Tristan da Cunha Group.) 
Mesoscolopax minutus (Gould). LITTLE WHIMBREL. 
Tugasesow, Journ. f. Ornith. Festschrift, pp. 136-142 (plate of nestling and egg), October, 1929. 
Mathews, Birds Austr., Vol. II., pt. 2, p. 180, pi. 146, May 2nd, 1913. 
Nestling. Crown of head with two brown stripes divided by a line of buff, lores and a wide line 
over the eye buff, below which and behind the eye is a small patch of brown ; two brown 
lines run down the back, between the wings, those lines are divided by buff ; tail brown ; 
sides of the body and entire under-surface buffy-white. July 6th (Kumach-Sygy country, 
80 kilometres from Verehoyansk down the Kolymosk road). 
Nest. A depression in the ground, on the slope, or large, not too marshy valleys and plains of 
high zone, with dry trees or their burned trunks, with some thin bushes between. 
Eggs. Clutch three ; slightly pyriform-ovate in shape ; ground-colour olive-buff ; heavily marked 
on the larger end with large blotches of umber-brown, and towards the smaller end with 
spots of a lighter colour, and underlying ones of ashy-grey, 54 mm. by 37. (Described 
from the coloured plate.) 
Breeding-season. June (25th, 1874), on the watershed of the Moyero river, 66° 30' north latitude. 
Its breeding range is : the Alpine zone of North-east Siberia : Verehoyansk Range, 
watershed of the Lena and the Yana, and the highland at the sources of the Khatanga. 
The watershed of the Yana and the Adycha, under 68° north latitude, can be considered as 
the most northern spot of its breeding. 
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