One of the greatest authorities on Arctic birds, Prof. Alfred Newton, of the University of Cambridge, has well said that in consideration of the avifauna of any country its peculiarities can be determined only by dismissing accidental stragglers from the discussion. In elucidating the great question of geographical distribution, one must confine himself to either the birds that breed therein, or to those species which regularly frequent it for a considerable portion of the year.
Considering the enormous area covered by the Fram expedition and its great diversity of physical conditions of sea and land, it was impossible to treat under a single heading the birds observed.
Pseudalibrotus Nanseni, G. O. Sars.
Mr. Collet has, therefore, been wise in dividing his notes into four sections, covering the Asiatic coast, the Siberian ocean, the sledge journey to Franz Josef Land, and the Arctic Ocean to the north of Franz Josef Land and Spitzbergen. But for this division, confusion would have resulted from combining birds of regions so widely extended in longitude and latitude.
The notes show conclusively what might have been anticipated, that the avifauna of the Siberian Sea, and especially that portion of the Arctic Ocean to the north of Franz Josef Land and Spitzbergen, is strictly limited.
Including the species observed during the entire voyage, there are only thirty-three recorded. Only twenty-one species pertain to the Arctic Ocean, whether as regular migrants or stragglers, after excluding the twelve species which were observed near the Asiatic coast. The presence on the shores of the Siberian Sea of some of these twelve, however, is of ornithological interest. There may be specially mentioned the gray goose (Anser segetum), long-tailed duck (Harelda glacialis), silver gull (Larus argentatus), snowy owl (Nyctea scandiaca), gray plover (Squatarola helvetica) and the red-necked phalarope (Phalaropus hyperboreous).
Confining ourselves to birds observed to the north of 81° 30, attention is called to the abundant avifauna of the western as compared with the eastern hemisphere. In Kennedy Channel, Grinnell Land, there have been recorded no less than thirty-two species against twenty-one noted by the Fram in this voyage, including those seen in Franz Josef Land. This is not surprising, however, when it is considered that the drift of the Fram was across a deep ocean of large extent, which is covered perpetually by an unbroken ice-pack, unrelieved by any view of land until the north coast of Spitzbergen was seen.
Omitting the birds observed in Franz Josef Land, the paucity of species frequenting the great western Arctic Ocean is even more apparent. The striking dissimilarity of the four regions traversed by the Fram is plainly evident from the bird-life recorded. While there were observed nine species in the Siberian Sea, fifteen in the Franz Josef Archipelago, eighteen in the Arctic Ocean and twenty-three on the Asiatic coast, yet only five were common to all four regions, viz.: the dovekie, the glaucous gull, the ivory gull, the kittiwake and the snow-bird.
The Siberian Sea presented a most limited avifauna, as in addition to the five common species, there were recorded in the first summer in the ice only the little auk, the fulmar, the roseate gull and a small skua. The entire absence of land or shore birds that frequent Arctic islands, omitting a single straggling snow-bird, indicates clearly that the Siberian Sea extends far northward unbroken by any land area.