Auks, Murres, Puffins 



"The bird cliffs on Arveprins Island (Northern Greenland) 

 deserve a passing notice, not for Arctic travellers, but for the gen^ 

 eral reader," writes General Greely in "Three Years of Arctic 

 Service." 



. " For over a thousand feet out of the sea these cliffs rise per- 

 pendicularly, broken only by narrow ledges, in general inaccessi- 

 ble to man or other enemy, which afford certain kinds of sea 

 fowl secure and convenient breeding places. On the face of 

 these sea-ledges of Arveprins Island, Briinnich's guillemots, or 

 loons, (sic) gather in the breeding season, not by thousands, but 

 by tens of thousands. Each lays but a single gray egg, speckled 

 with brown ; yet so numerous are the birds, that every available 

 spot is covered with eggs. The surprising part is that each bird 

 knows its own egg, although there is no nest and it rests on the 

 bare rock. Occasional quarrels over an egg generally result in a 

 score of others being rolled into the sea. 



"The clumsy, short- winged birds fall an easy prey to the 

 sportsman, provided the cliffs are not too high, but many fall on 

 lower inaccessible ledges, and so uselessly perish. A single shot 

 brings out thousands on the wing, and the unpleasant cackling, 

 which is continuous when undisturbed, becomes a deafening 

 clamor when they are hunted. 



"The eggs are very palatable. The flesh is excellent to 

 my taste the best flavored of any Arctic sea fowl; but, to avoid 

 the slightly train-oil taste, it is necessary to keep the bird to ripen, 

 and to carefully skin it before cooking." Later on, the starving 

 survivors in the camp near Cape Sabine owed the prolonging of 

 their wretched existence from day to day largely to these very 

 birds. 



When these murres come down from the far north to visit 

 us in winter they keep so well out from land that none of our 

 ornithologists seem to have made a very close study of them. 

 Like other birds of the order to which they belong, they dive sud- 

 denly out of sight when approached, and by the help of wings 

 and feet swim under water for incredible distances. 



The Common Murre or Guillemot (Uria troile), so called, is 

 certainly less common in the United States than the preceding 

 species. Massachusetts appears to be its southern limit. In 

 winter, when we see it here, it can be distinguished from 



22 



