120 306 



the birds, when sitting, almost touch one another. On Ren0 near 

 Vard0, for instance, upwards of 20 eggs of this and TJria troile 

 were discovered under one fragment of rock. Under such cir- 

 cumstances there_is little probability of each bird being able to 

 single out and keep to its own egg. 



Large numbers of this bird and other species breeding on the 

 „Fuglevser" are caught in the spring in nets. Most of the indi- 

 viduals leave Finmark at the approach of winter and repair in dense 

 flocks to the southern shores. 



Alca impennis, Lin. 



j^s yet — I make bold to say — there is no conclusive evid- 

 ence of a single example of this species having occurred within the 

 confines of the country. That it may, in exceptional cases have 

 strayed to our shores, is a possibility that no one, I presume, will 

 pretend to doubt; but when I have passed in review the various 

 facts, advanced with the express purpose of giving it an acknow- 

 ledged place in our fauna, I shall endeavour to show that not one 

 of them affords satisfactory proof in that direction. 



In the year 1762, Str0m^ records this species in his „Be- 

 skrivelse over S0ndm0r" as abundant in the spring of the year both 

 on the fjords and off the coast of S0ndm0re, in Bergen Stift, where 

 it occurs in large flocks; he also gives a description, defective 

 indeed, but still sufficiently plain to recognise the bird of its 

 general appearance, and states emphatically that no Norwegian 

 author had previously recorded the species. 



The correctness of Str0m's observation has long been doubted. 

 It is true, that Nilsson and Steenstrup are both agreed in supposing 

 that his description may possibly be to some extent in accordance 

 with fact, „for he must indeed have had one or more of these 

 birds before him;" but the large numbers in which he alleges they 

 appear must necessarily refer to some other species, in all prob- 

 ability to Harelda glacialis. 



I will now endeavour to show, that Str0m most likely never 

 saw a specimen of Alca impennis in his life, and that the descrip- 



' „Physisk og^econ. Beskr. over Fogderiet Sandmer, Sora 1762," p. 221. 



