TRAPPERS 21 



its size, for the capture of bears, was pointed 

 out to us. It is unnecessary to say that no 

 bear has been seen in these regions for a long 

 time past. 



To gain the beach we were compelled to 

 cross the large flotsam-covered plain. In the 

 centre of this, a copper plate inset into a rock 

 commemorates the winterage of the Austrian 

 Mission, organised by Count Wilczeck in 1882 - 



1883. 



We arrived at last at the foot of the Vogel- 

 berg, one half of whose immense crater falls 

 sheer into the sea, forming a cliff in which 

 thousands of petrels nest. It is here the 

 trappers obtain the bait for their traps. 



Guillemots and macareux teem amid the 

 rocks farther north. These present the hunters 

 with the only fresh food obtainable, but in 

 winter these birds migrate. The petrels are 

 the only birds which remain the whole year 

 round, but they are not edible. During the 

 winter, therefore, the trappers cannot obtain 

 any fresh food, and perhaps it is due to this 

 privation that scurvy, the scourge of these 

 latitudes, may justly be attributed. 



On the sands we encountered numerous 

 turnstones, which Merit e approached cautiously. 

 He succeeded in shooting two of them, and was 



