BIRDS. 105 



three are found. Always nest in crevices and fissures of cliffs, where it 

 is often extremely difficult to get at them. They are very tame ; but it 

 is next to an impossibility to shoot one on the water if the bird is watch- 

 ing you, for they dive quite as quickly as a loon. I have seen three 

 entirely black specimens, which I considered to be U. carlo. One was 

 procured in Cumberland, but was lost, with many others, after we arrived 

 in the United States. I have examined specimens of carbo since in the 

 Smithsonian collection, and my bird was nothing but a melanistic speci- 

 men of U. yrylle. I also have seen an albino specimen. 



There were a few birds in an air-hole in the ice near our harbor in the 

 latter days of June that to all appearance resembled the autumn plum- 

 age of the young; but the ice was too treacherous for me to venture out, 

 so I sent an Eskimo. He returned and reported them " Kanitucalo 

 peclmlak" (very near a Guillemot). But if he meant that they were 

 in imperfect plumage or another species closely resembling grylle, I could 

 not make out. He could not get close enough to the air-hole to procure 

 the specimen he killed, and I never saw or heard anything more of them. 



84. Lomvia arra, Brandt. 



"Akpa," Cumberland Eskimo and Greenlauders. 



I had hoped to be able to throw some light on the subject of the re- 

 lationship of the Murres, but I find my material corresponds with my 

 opportunities for observation very poor and unsatisfactory. I first met 

 these birds in numbers off the coast of Eesolution Island, but many were 

 seen farther south. About Grinnell Bay and Frobisher Straits they are 

 common even as far as the mouth of Cumberland, but apparently quite 

 rare in the waters of that sound The Eskimo say they formerly bred 

 in great numbers on the Kikkerton Islands ; but they have now appa- 

 rently abandoned them. There are large breeding-places about Cape 

 Mercy and AYalsinghain, the largest "rookery" being on the Padlie 

 Islands iii Exeter Sound. On the Greenland coast they are very abund- 

 ant, breeding by thousands in many localities. Observed plentifully in 

 the pack-ice in July. All the specimens collected by me were typical 

 arra. I procured but one single troile. The var. ringvia, Briinn., Gov- 

 ernor Fencker has not met during eleven years' collecting on the Green- 

 land coast ; and var. troile appears to be far from common. There is a 

 remarkable variation in the distribution of the dark color, some being 

 white on the throat quite to the bill, and again 1 have seen specimens 

 entirely black. The dark markings on the eggs of L. arra and troile^ as 

 well as A. torda, can readily be obliterated with luke-warm water. 



