III.] THE ARCTIC PUFFIN AND THE BLACK GUILLEMOT. 89 



I saw several of their nests. These are placed near the summits 

 of steep cliffs along the shore. The black guillemots often swim 

 out together in pairs in the fjords. Their flesh has about the 

 same taste as Brlinnich's guillemot, but is tougher and of 

 inferior quality ; the eggs, on the other hand, are excellent. 



The sea fowl mentioned above are never met with inland. 

 They never settle on a grassy sward or on a level sandy beach. 

 The steep fowl-fell sides, the sea, ground-ice, pieces of drift-ice 

 and small stones rising above the water, form their habitat. 

 They swim with great skill both on, and under the water. The 

 black guillemots and rotges fly swiftly and well ; Brlinnich's 

 guillemots, on the contrary, heavily and ill. The latter therefore 

 do not perhaps remove in winter farther from their hatching 



THE ARCTIC PUFFIN. 



Swedish, Lunnefogel. (Mormon Arcticus, li.) 



THE BLACK GUILLEMOT. 



Swedish, Tejst. (Urm Grylle, L.) 



places than to the nearest open water, and it is probable that 

 colonies of Brlinnich's guiUemots are not located at places 

 where the sea freezes completely even far out from the coast. 

 On this perhaps depends the scarcity of Brlinnich's guillemot 

 in the Kara Sea. 



While sailing in the Arctic Ocean, vessels are nearly always 

 attended by two kinds of gulls, the greedy stormaosen or 

 lorgmacstcren, glaucous gull {Larus glaucus, Brlinn.), and the 

 gracefully formed, swiftly flying kryekian or tretaoiga 7naosen, 

 kittiwake {Larus tridactylus, L.), and if the hunter lies to at an 

 ice-floe to flense upon it a seal which has been shot, it is not 

 long till a large number of snow-white birds with dark blue 

 bills and black le^rs settle down in the neighbourhood in order 



