6 
passengers, approaches the steep cliff wall, whose height is about 
joo feet, and whose breadth is considerably more, but where 
nevertheless, pretty well every available space of so muchas a 
foot in size, is taken advantage of by the gulls, so that the whole 
wall seems white with the masses of birds resting on it, whilst at 
the same time “the air is darkened,” as the saying is,—by the 
swarms on the wing. A shot is generally fired from the ship to 
cause the birds perched on the rock to take wing, but so accus- 
tomed are they to this attention, that it is only an inconsiderable 
portion which can be prevailed on to rise. When King Oscar II. 
visited Finmarken in 1873 in a man of war, the ordinary salute 
was first tried, but without particular success; then one of the 
corvette’s large cannon opened its mouth; it fesounded on the 
mountain wall like a thunder clap, which drowned the noise pro- 
duced by the innumerable screaming throats, and then, says 
Professor Friis,“ who was present, even the old individuals were 
forced to turn out. 
Each spring, about the middle of May, when the eggs are laid, 
the proprietor of the Klubbe takes as many of them as he can 
reach with a long pole from the foot of the mountain; ropes are 
not employed here, as on the Faroe islands. The maximum 
clutch is three eggs to a nest; the yield is about 5,000 eggs, some 
years not so many; in others as much as double the number. 
These represent nearly 2,000 pairs of birds; all the remaining 
portion of the mountain-wall remains untouched. But moreover 
it appears, that for every breeding pair (with entirely white head) 
the cliff is inhabited by perhaps eight to ten young individuals, 
recognizable by the black ring on the nape of the neck, which do 
not breed. In determining the total number we shall reach up to 
millions, and these masses are crowded together like white snow- 
flakes upon the narrow resting-places, and at the foot, of a single 
vertical, black area of comparatively insignificant extent. 
On what do these swarms live? In greater or lesser com- 
panies, often in rows as straight as a line, train after train come 
in at fixed times of the day, passing from the sea or over the 
* Professor J. A. Friis is Professor of Lappish in Christiania University, a 
well-known sportsman, and author of numerous interesting and valuable works. — 
Transl. 
