SPITZBERGEN AND GREENLAND. 67 



And so, when they fly up, they press against the wind with 

 their bodies and expand their M'ings, and so fly away very 

 swiftly ; also their feathers would be entangled, so that they 

 could not have a sure and steddy flight, but faulter in their 

 flying like birds that learn to fly. There is but little meat 

 upon them ; we eat but the legs and the breast, for the wings 

 are nothing but skin and bone. Wc have a proverb and say : 

 Thou art as light as a mew. This we may very well say of 

 these mews. I have seen them since in the SjJatiish Sea, and 

 also in the North Sea, but yet they differ from these ; and so 

 do the beasts of all countries. 



5. Of the Burger meister} 



The Burgermeister (in English Major), is the biggest of all 

 the birds of Spitzbergen, wherefore this name is given him as 

 being the chief of them. His bill is crooked, of a yellow 

 colour, narrow and thick ; his under-bill is somewhat rising 

 or knobby at the point or end, a great deal more than the 

 Jiiitge-gehefs, which looketh very pretty, as if he had a chery 

 in his mouth ; he hath longish nostrils, and a red ring about 

 his eyes, as I mentioned when I spoke of the kutge-gehef; 

 he hath but three claws of a grey colour ; his legs are grey, 

 and not quite so long as those of a stork, yet he is almost 

 equally big with him. 



His tail is broad, like a fan, and white, which is chiefly to 

 be understood of these birds when they fly ; his wings are of 

 a pale colour, and so is also the back, but the wings are white 

 at the tip, and so is the whole body. He builds his nest very 

 high in the clifts of the rocks, where you can neither shoot 

 nor catch them any other way ; which was the reason I could 

 not see their nests. I have seen sometimes two, three, and 

 four of their young ones together ; we shoot most of them 

 when we draw a dead whale behind our ship, where they 

 flock in great numbers, and bite off" great pieces of the fat of 



^ The Glaucous Gull or Burgomaster {Larus fjlaucus). 



