IO 



Along the whole coast-line there occurs hardly a holm, 

 or an island large enough to provide sufficient food to keep a 

 couple of sheep during the summer, without its being also in- 

 habited by a pair of Oyster-catchers (Hcematopus ostralegus), 

 some Ringed Plovers (JEgiaiitis hiaticula), often also by the 

 Turnstone (Stvepsilas interpres), and some small Gulls and Terns 

 (Sterna macmra). If the island is bigger, and more covered with 

 heather or grass, there may nearly always be found there, in 

 addition, one or two pairs of Eider Duck, and a sprinkling of the 

 larger species of Gull, especially Herring Gulls (Larus avgentatus). 



As we approach the larger bird-islands or egg-holms the 

 bird-hosts are recognizable from a long distance. 



Upon these egg-holms is the home of the Eider. Every- 

 where among the heather or in the scrub, the ducks are sitting 

 close upon the five large yellowish-gray eggs, surrounded by the 

 fluffy wall of down ; it is well-known that they often place their 

 nests quite close to the houses of the human inhabitants, 

 even under the door-steps, or the floor of the kitchen. The 

 Eider is often the islanders' only domestic fowl ; through 

 the whole summer the broods lie scattered along the shore-edge, 

 and the little brown-black ducklings dive gallantly into the surf 

 after mussels, and other small creatures, and they also eagerly 

 search for the fish-offal that is thrown away. Complete harmony 

 prevails mutually between the families ; if the young get separ- 

 ated from their mother, they attach themselves to the nearest 

 duck that they meet with, and one sees not unfrequently a duck 

 in this way at the head of a row of over twenty small ducklings, 

 which follow her like a string of beads on the surface of the 

 water. 



The Greater Black-backed Gull (Larus marinus), the Grey- Lag 

 Goose (Anser cinereus), and the Arctic or Richardson's Skua 

 (Steycorarius crepidatus) are also among the most frequent of the 

 inhabitants of the egg-holm. And upon the largest of them, 

 where the protection is strict, it not unfrequently happens that 

 quite strange species settle themselves down to nest. Thus on 



B in Lofoten there have bred for many years a pair of 



Barnacle Geese (Bevnicla leucopsis), a bird which nests nowhere 

 else in the country. 



