o BRITISH BIRDS. WITH THEIR NESTS AND EGGS 



night stole a piece of blubber lying close by the tent wall." Dr. Nansen else- 

 where in his "Farthest North" tells how these birds behaved over the "remains" 

 of a bear he had shot. " On the shore below the tent," he says, " the Ivory 

 Gulls were making a fearful hubub. They had gathered in scores from all 

 quarters and could not agree as to the fair division of the bear's entrails ; they 

 fought incessantly, filling the air with their angry cries. It is one of nature's 

 unaccountable freaks to have made this bird so pretty while giving it such an 

 ugly voice." This is quite in accordance with what has been recorded by 

 Captain Fielden. "The Gulls gathered in large flocks from all quarters, both 

 Ivory and Glaucous Gulls, and kept up a perpetual screaming and noise both 

 night and day. When they had eaten as much as they could manage, they 

 generally sat out on the ice-hummocks and chattered together. When we came 

 down to skin, they withdrew only a very little way from the carcases [of the 

 walruses], and sat waiting patiently in long rows on the ice beside us, or, led on 

 by a few bold officers, drew continually nearer. No sooner did a little scrap of 

 blubber fall than two or three Ivory Gulls would pounce upon it, often at our 

 very feet, and fight over it until the feathers flew." 



The Ivory Gull feeds, in the Arctic regions, on Crustacea and Clio borealis. 

 "They never lie down," notes the Rev. A. E. Eaton, "like the Arctic Terns, 

 but either walk or stand still ; some of them walking far into the interior of the 

 carcases of the white whales, and emerging with their heads covered with blood." 



Professor Malmgren writes that in Spitzbergen the Ivory Gull " is seldom 

 seem elsewhere than near the ice. It does not settle on the water like other 

 Gulls, but it is invariably seen on the edge of the ice; and it takes its prey with 

 its beak from the water when on the wing. This species and the Fulmar appear 

 in numbers when a seal or walrus is being cut up, and are so little shy that if 

 one throws, out pieces of fat they will approach quite close. At these places, 

 where the seals, &c., are cut up, the Fulmars swim round, whereas the Ivory 

 Gulls are on the wing, or sitting on the ice. Martens remarks also that he did 

 not see them swimming on the water. This Gull feeds on carcases left by the 

 walrus-hunters or the remnants left over after the Polar bears have eaten ; but 

 its chief food consists of the excrements of the seal and walrus. I often observed 

 on my excursions in places where the Ivory Gulls were numerous (as, for 

 instance, in Murchison's Bay, in 80 N. lat.), that they will sit for hours at the 

 holes in the stationary ice, through which the seals come up to lie on the ice, 

 waiting for the seals appearance. They look as if sitting in council round a 

 table ; and this practice has doubtless given rise to the curious name used by 

 Martens in 1675 for this Gull, viz., 'Rathsherr' (councillor), a name analogous 



