62 SEA-BIRDS 



feet sheer from the sea, and, as Bertram and Lack say, "have been 

 described with justice as the finest bird-cHffs in the Northern Hemi- 

 sphere." However, those of St. Kilda are (in one place) also fourteen 

 hundred feet high, and are more varied, with a better-known history. 

 Those who have seen both may think St. Kilda finer, though Bear 

 Island has more birds and is more magnificently sinister. It certainly 

 has a higher sea-bird population than any comparable place in the 

 North Atlantic- Arctic ; though it seems to have competitors in the 

 Pribilov, Aleutian and Kurile Islands and other parts of the North 

 Pacific. But there are many great bird-stations besides Bear Island 

 and St. Kilda, where the observer may behold a community of a 

 million birds or more. On the basalt cliffs of the Faeroes, particularly 

 north-west Streymoy, he may find this number. Perhaps nowhere 

 in Iceland is there a cliff-site with a million birds, but there are many 

 rocks with many thousands, from the Westmann Isles in the south 

 to Grimsey in the north; from Latrabjarg in the west to SkruQur 

 and Papey in the east. Jan Mayen has at least a million sea-birds; 

 and there may well be millions at more than several places in Spits- 

 bergen; perhaps on the hills of Horn Sound, Cloven Cliff off the 

 north-west, Magdalena Bay and Brandy Bay in North-east Land; 

 almost certainly on the Vogel Hoek of Prince Charles Foreland, the 

 great auk hill of Advent Bay, and the dolerite Alkrange of Hinlopen 

 Strait. A pioneer ecologist and student of animal numbers (Elton in 

 Longstaff, 1924) wrote of the Alkrange: — 



*'It is impossible to describe the multitudes of the Guillemots on 

 the bird cliffs. The place was teeming with them: literally hundreds 

 of thousands. The cliffs are made of columnar dolerite which weathers 

 into pinnacles and which rise several hundred feet sheer out of the 

 sea. On the numerous narrow ledges the birds were so crowded that 

 there was room for no more. The rows of black and white birds rising 

 in tiers up to near the top, and the ghostly noise of the combined 

 twitter made by them, made it seem as if one was in a vast opera house, 

 packed with crowds of people in white shirt-fronts and black tails, 

 all whispering comments on each other and rustling their pro- 

 grammes." 



It seems clear that either the little auk or Briinnich's guillemot is 

 the most abundant bird of the north. It is hard to decide which; 

 the little auk colonies are perhaps fewer, and certainly less obvious 

 as dense loomeries, because the birds nest in crevices and not on flat 

 open ledges. But the dark cloud of circling, twittering dovekies 



