1887-88.] Recent Notes on the Great Ank. lOl 



a cry which they emitted when they drew more closely together. It 

 ressembled a cackling, as if they wished to call one another. At first I did 

 not think of shooting, for the boat was rolling hard. It was only when 

 the birds had removed to a distance of about seventy yards, and were 

 only visible at intervals, that I resolved, at the request of my companions, 

 to take aim. When the shot went off all the four birds disappeared ; but 

 shortly after I saw the remaining three paddling on farther until they dis- 

 appeared behind the surging waves of the current." 



To what is here said I need only remark, in addition, that during the 

 winter the Cohjmbus glacialis is along the coast of the whole of Finmark 

 (and also of all the rest of Norway) a perfectly well-known bird, which 

 is called by sportsmen Immer or Hav-Immer (sea-immer). No confu- 

 sion with it can therefore have taken place, as indeed becomes sufficiently 

 plain from the following letter of Herr Nordvi. Any one who is at all 

 acquainted with the nature of our different sea-birds will besides have 

 remarked that none of the diver (Colymbus) species keep close together 

 when they are lying on the water, whilst this is exactly a peculiarity of 

 members of the Auk family. Herr Nordvi, who at present occupies the 

 post of Inspector of the Archaeological Museum in the University of 

 Christiania, was formerly a merchant and collector of objects of natural 

 history at Mortensnas, a town lying to the south of Vadso.^ He is a man 

 to whom science is indebted for many contributions to the knowledge of 

 the ethnography and natural history of these northern regions, and even 

 at that time he had entered into active correspondence with varioiis men 

 of science. In a letter dated "Christiania, March 11, 18S4," he writes me 

 as follows : " In December ] 848 I received at Mortensniis, to the south of 

 Vadso, then my place of abode, a visit from my friend Herr L. Brodtkorb 

 of Vardo. On my asking him — who had been brought up in Vardo, and 

 was from boyhood familiar with all the birds and fishes there, and whom 

 I knew to be an eager sportsman and good observer — what in the way of 

 novelty he had to tell me about the animal kingdom, he told me that in 

 the last days of April he had, in a sporting tour in the strait between 

 Vardo and Reno, come upon four birds hitherto unknown to him, one of 

 which he had shot and taken away with him, but had afterwards thrown 

 away upon the shore. I asked him if the bird shot might not perhaps be 

 one of the larger divers (Colymbus glacialis ovarcticus). He said that could 

 not be, since he had shot many birds of that genus. When he stated that 

 the bird killed by him had no proper wings, and, as he considered, could 

 not fly at all, because it used its wing-stump (vinge-kqjper) to aid it in 

 swimming, and when he mentioned, in addition, that it had a large white 

 spot beside the eye, the thought at once came to me that this might have 

 been the Alca impennis. To be surer of the matter, I asked him to look 

 over a book containing coppeqjlates which I had, and to see if he could 

 there find the bird that he had shot. Without any hesitation he pointed 

 to the Alca impennis and said, ' There it is.' I then gave him some details 



' Vardo and Vadso are two small towns on the Varanger Fjord, which, in its 

 extreme part, forms the boundary between Norway and Kussia. Vardo lies 

 farthest up, towards the Arctic Ocean. 



