The Voyage of the Vega round Asia and Europe, Volume I and Volume IINordenskiöld, A. E. (Adolf Erik)
History
The Voyage of the Vega round Asia and Europe, Volume I and Volume II
Nordenskiöld, A. E. (Adolf Erik)
Arctic regions -- Discovery and exploration; Northeast Passage; Vega (Ship)
The proper breeding places of this bird scarcely appear to be yet
known. So common as it is both on the coasts of Spitzbergen from the
Seven Islands to South Cape and on the north coast of Novaya Zemlya
and America, its nest has only been found twice, once in 1853 by
McClintock at Cape Krabbe in North America in 77 deg. 25' N.L.,
the second time by Dr. Malmgren at Murchison Bay, in 82 deg. 2'
N.L. The two nests that Malmgren found consisted of depressions,
twenty-three to twenty-six centimetres in diameter, in a heap of
loose gravel, on a ledge of a steeply-sloping limestone-rock wall.
In each nest was found only one egg, which, on the 30th July,
already contained a down-covered young bird. For all the ivory gulls
which have their home on Spitzbergen there were doubtless required
several hundred such breeding-places as that at Murchison Bay. When
to this is added the fact that we never in autumn saw on Spitzbergen
any full-grown young of this kind of gull, I assume that its proper
breeding-place must be found farther north, on the shores of some
still unknown Polar land, perhaps continually surrounded by ice. It
deserves to be mentioned with reference to this, that Murchison Bay
was covered with ice when Malmgren found the nests referred to
above.
Besides these varieties of the gull, two other species have been
found, though very rarely, in the Polar regions, viz., _Larus
Sabinii_, Sabine, and _Larus Rossii_, Richards. Although I have
myself only seen the latter, and that but once (on the Chukchi
Peninsula), I here give drawings of them both for the use of future
Polar explorers. They are perhaps, if they be properly observed, not
so rare as is commonly supposed.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account