Land was sighted on the 28th July at 10.30 P.M. It was the headland which juts out from the south of Gooseland in 70 deg. 33' N.L. and 51 deg. 54' E.L. (Greenwich). Gooseland is a low stretch of coast, occupied by grassy flats and innumerable small lakes, which projects from the mainland of Novaya Zemlya between 72 deg. 10' and 71 deg. 30' N.L. The name is a translation of the Russian Gusinnaja Semlja, and arises from the large number of geese and swans (_Cygnus Bewickii_, Yarr.) which breed in that region. The geese commonly place their exceedingly inconsiderable nests on little hillocks near the small lakes which are scattered over the whole of Gooseland; the powerful swans, which are very difficult of approach by the hunter, on the other hand breed on the open plain. The swans' nests are so large that they may be seen at a great distance. The building material is moss, which is plucked from the ground within a distance of two metres from the nest, which by the excavation which is thus produced, is surrounded by a sort of moat. The nest itself forms a truncated cone, 0.6 metre high and 2.4 metres in diameter at the bottom. In its upper part there is a cavity, 0.2 metre deep and 0.6 metre broad, in which the four large grayish-white eggs of the bird are laid. The female hatches the eggs, but 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 avifauna 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 Besimannaja Bay.