554 WEB-FOOTED BIRDS. 



amidst the horrors of a region covered with eternal ice. 

 Here it is commonly found upon the floating masses of the 

 gelid ocean, far from land, to which alone it resorts in the 

 season of procreation. In this cheerless climate, 



Ocean itself no longer can resist 

 The binding fury ; but, in all its rage 

 Of tempest taken by the boundless frost. 

 Is many a fathom to the bottom chain'd. 

 And bid to roar no more ; a bleak expanse, 

 Shagg'd o'er with wavy rocks, cheerless, and void 

 Of every life, that from the dreary months 

 Flies conscious southward. 



Deprived of the use of wings, degraded as it were from 

 the feathered ranks, and almost numbered with the amphib- 

 ious monsters of the deep, the Auk seems condemned to 

 dwell alone in those desolate and forsaken regions of the 

 earth. Yet aided by all bountiful nature he finds means to 

 subsist, and triumphs over all the physical ills of his condi- 

 tion. As a diver he remains unrivalled, proceeding beneath 

 the water, his most natural element, almost with the velocity 

 of many birds in the air. He thus contrives to vary his 

 situation with the season, migrating for short distances, like 

 the finny prey on which he feeds. In the Ferroe isles, Ice- 

 land, Greenland and Newfoundland, they dwell and breed 

 in great numbers. They nest among the steepest cliffs of 

 islands remote from the shore, in the vicinity of floating ice, 

 taking possession of caverns, the crannies and clefts of 

 rocks ; or they dig for themselves deep burrows in which 

 they lay their only egg, about the size of that of the Swan, 

 whitish-yellow marked with numerous lines and spots of 

 black, which present to the imagination the idea of Chinese 

 characters. They are so unprolific, that if this egg be 

 taken away, they lay no other that season. Their time of 

 breeding is June and July. 



