passengers, approaches the steep cliff wall, whose height is about 

 900 feet, and whose breadth is considerably more, but where 

 nevertheless, pretty well every available space of so much as a 

 foot in size, is taken advantage of by the gulls, so that the whole 

 wall seems white with the masses of birds resting on it, whilst at 

 the same time "the air is darkened," as the saying is, by the 

 swarms on the wing. A shot is generally fired from the ship to 

 cause the birds perched on the rock to take wing, but so accus- 

 tomed are they to this attention, that it is only an inconsiderable 

 portion which can be prevailed on to rise. When King Oscar II. 

 visited Finmarken in 1873 in a man of war, the ordinary salute 

 was first tried, but without particular success ; then one of the 

 corvette's large cannon opened its mouth ; it resounded on the 

 mountain wall like a thunder clap, which drowned the noise pro- 

 duced by the innumerable screaming throats, and then, says 

 Professor Friis,* who was present, even the old individuals were 

 forced to turn out. 



Each spring, about the middle of May, when the eggs are laid, 

 the proprietor of the Klubbe takes as many of them as he can 

 reach with a long pole from the foot of the mountain ; ropes are 

 not employed here, as on the Faroe islands. The maximum 

 clutch is three eggs to a nest ; the yield is about 5,000 eggs, some 

 years not so many ; in others as much as double the number. 

 These represent nearly 2,000 pairs of birds ; all the remaining 

 portion of the mountain-wall remains untouched. But moreover 

 it appears, that for every breeding pair (with entirely white head) 

 the cliff is inhabited by perhaps eight to ten young individuals, 

 recognizable by the black ring on the nape of the neck, which do 

 not breed. In determining the total number we shall reach up to 

 millions, and these masses are crowded together like white snow- 

 flakes upon the narrow resting-places, and at the foot, of a single 

 vertical, black area of comparatively insignificant extent. 



On what do these swarms live ? In greater or lesser com- 

 panies, often in rows as straight as a line, train after train come 

 in at fixed times of the day, passing from the sea or over the 



* Professor J. A. Friis is Professor of Lappish in Christiania University, a 

 wd^known sportsman, and author of numerous interesting and valuable works. 

 TrdnsL 



