AN ALASKAN ISLAND.^ 



" There dark they lie and stark they lie — rookery, dune, and floe, 

 And the Northern Lights come down o' nights to dance witli the house- 

 less snow, 

 And God who clears the grounding berg and steers the grinding floe 

 lie hears the cry of the little kit fox and the lemning in the snow." 



— RuDYARi) Kipling, Tht Bhyme of the Three Sealers. 



THE AXCIENT MUKRELET. 



The Ancient Miirrelet, or the " Old Man," as the Kussians 

 call him, is one of the sea-birds of the Alaskan and Siberian 

 coast. The following account of his habits is so good that we 

 may make place for him : — 



We were about one hundred and eighty miles east by south 

 from Unga (a small island off the Alaskan peninsula) when 

 these hardy birds were first seen. At first one would think 

 they were amusing themselves, for they would fly a short dis- 

 tance ahead of the ship, dropping into the water, and swim- 

 ming so as to be near the vessel's bows as she passed ; then 

 diving beneath the hull and coming up just under the stern. 

 After they had dropped astern a few hundred feet, they took 

 wing and repeated this manoeuvre with unvarying precision 

 throughout the entire day. By close watching I found that it 

 was not for pleasure they did this, but that they were feeding 

 on small invertebrates, such as are found on ships' bottoms. 



By June second their nesting grounds were reached, but no 

 birds were to be found, and to one unacquainted with their 



1 Abridged by permission of the author, Mr. Chase Littlejohu, fron. an 

 article published in The Auk. 



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