Abstract
IN the summer of 1895 Mr. H. J. Pearson and a party of fellow naturalists visited the Barents Sea to study the birds that nest upon its shores. The party landed on Kolguev and Novaya Zemlya, and at one of the promontories on the Murman Coast. Many interesting observations were made on the natural history of the region, but work was hampered by the small size and limited coal capacity of their yacht, the Saxon. Two years later Mr. Pearson returned in a larger and more powerful vessel. The main object of the second journey was the investigation of the avifauna of the coastlands of north-eastern Russia, between the Pechora and the Urals, an area which the author describes as “ornithologically unknown.” In the summer this country is accessible only from the sea, owing to the vast extent of flood and swamp. Mr. Pearson accordingly chartered the Laura, and, accompanied by Colonel Feilden and Mr. F. Curtis, left Tromso for the Pechora coastlands in June, 1897. The scheme was to land near the mouth of the Karataikha River. But the Laura could not approach nearer than twenty miles from the mouth of the river, and it was not considered safe to leave the steamer in the open bay. for eight hours while the entrance was reconnoitred in the launch. Mr. Pearson was therefore reluctantly compelled, “to abandon the chief object of the expedition as impracticable from the sea.” The steamer was turned northward, and the rest of the season was spent in visits to Dolgoi Island, “Waigatch” and Novaya Zemlya.
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G., J. The Natural History of the Shores of Barents Sea 1 . Nature 61, 348–350 (1900). https://doi.org/10.1038/061348a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/061348a0