Nesting habitat of Brant on Prince Patrick Island in mid-July. The bird is a Long-tailed 
Jaeger (Stercorarius longicaudus) at its nest. Note the snowbank; the bareness of the distant 
slopes; and the prevalence of grass in the foreground. Photograph by Charles O. Handley, Jr. 
The summering population probably totalled fewer than one hundred indi¬ 
viduals. A large number of these apparently did not attempt to nest. It is 
possible that the late thaw had much to do with this. The tundra was still 
seventy percent snow covered by 30 June. In general, the summering flocks 
did not mix, although they used the same tundra and the same ponds to a large 
extent. 
All the nests which I found were destroyed by dogs or foxes ( Alopex ), al¬ 
though the fox population appeared to be not unusually high. Very few goslings 
WILSON BULLETIN 
,, , Sept. 1950 
Vol. 02, No. .1 
just arrived. This was the first date on which I observed large numbers of 
brant. Pairs of typical hrota and pairs of typical nigricans both nested on 
these same slopes, w'ith nests as little as two or three hundred yards apart. 
Other nests, less than a dozen in all, and scattered widely, I found on other 
well vegetated dry tundra in the vicinity, but I found no colonies. With the 
exception of two destroyed nests on rocks near the beach, all nests that I found 
were at least one mile inland. 
Charles 0. 
Handley, Jr. 
PRINCE PATRICK ISLAND BRANT 
131 
were found I he earliest of the season were located by S. D. MacDonald of the 
National Museum of Canada on a shore-lead on 23 July. I am not sure of the 
form to which these belonged because I did not see the parents. I found other 
broods, a total of five in all, on inland ponds on 29 July and 3 August. Three 
of these broods were nigricans. I am not sure that any of the young brant were 
able to fly by the time of the freeze-up the first week of September. The only 
one upon which I could keep a check was about three-fourths grown and partly 
fledged on 30 August. 1 J 
The fall migration, which began about the first of August and continued to 
the end of the month, seemed to proceed in a leisurely manner. The birds 
apparently left the island a few at a time throughout this period, in flocks 
vaiying from four to thirty individuals. The last nigricans were observed on 
.( . ugust, the last hrota on the 31st. I was surprised on 14 August to encounter 
a flock of about four hundred individuals grazing in a flooded meadow along 
Crazier Channel. The onl y P ortion of the flock that I could see clearly appeared 
to be nigricans. Perhaps this flock was made up of birds which had summered 
farther to the northeastward on Prince Patrick, on the Bordens, or in Isachsen 
Land, all of which places are known to be inhabited by brant. I think there 
were few, if any, local birds in the flock. 
In summary it may be stated that both the Black Brant, nigricans, and the 
American Brant or Light-bellied Brant, hrota, nested on Prince Patrick Island 
m 1949. Differences in arrival and departure dates of the two forms were slight 
and probably insignificant. The two forms nested in the same habitat evenon 
the same slopes more or less side by side, showing no ecological separation 
Neither form nested in colonies. Non-breeding birds of both forms frequented 
the same ponds and tundra. I observed no mixed breeding pairs and only 
infrequently observed what I thought to be a mixed flock. Thirteen adults 
collected at random for the U. S. National Museum were all typical of one form 
or the other. Nine were nigricans, four were hrota, none was intermediate. 
So-called intermediates between nigricans and hrota which have from time to 
time been taken in North America may not be true intermediates (i.e., inter¬ 
mediates in a genetic sense). They may be stray Branta b. bernida. It’would 
be hardly reasonable to suppose, however, that two such apparently closely 
related forms, nesting in intimate association as they did on Prince Patrick 
Island in 1949, would not occasionally interbreed. Since I did not actually 
observe any such interbreeding, and since the two forms appeared to be bio¬ 
logically isolated despite their geographical and physical proximity, they should, 
I believe, be considered specifically distinct. 
Literature Cited 
Bent, A. c. 
101.1 Lite histories of North American wildfowl, Order Anseres (part) U S Yalt 1 
Bull. 130:237-258. 
