90 ORNITHOLOGICAL EAMBLES. 



the return of the tide. Before, however, it is able to 

 effect this, this bird often pounces down upon it. By 

 hurrying to the spot, therefore, wherever this bird is 

 seen to drop in its flight, the fish may generally be dug 

 out and secured. 



A finer, larger, rarer, and perhaps still more noble- 

 looking bird, is the glaucous gull (Larus glaucus), but 

 there must be something more than usually attractive 

 to allure this bird within gunshot. To my great good 

 fortune, however, a dead whale has been lately stranded 

 upon this coast, from which Joseph has succeeded in 

 shooting me a really magnificent specimen while in the 

 act of feeding on the carcass. They are known to 

 follow floating animal matter for thousands of miles ; 

 and I am very proud of the present specimen. It is 

 termed " the burgomaster " by the Dutch, being the 

 title of their chief magistrate ; and it is a name 

 extremely well chosen, since no other gull dares to 

 dispute its authority whenever it chooses to exert it. 

 A constant attendant on the whale-fishers whenever 

 they are busied in cutting up a whale, it hovers over 

 the carcass, and, having fixed its eye on a choice 

 morsel of blubber or flesh, which some other of the 

 gull tribe has secured for itself, down it comes, and 

 forcing it to abandon the prize, carries it off as its own ; 

 or, if pressed by hunger, will sometimes even fall upon 

 one of the smaller sea-birds, and devour it whole. 

 Thus, one of them was shot in the Polar expedition 



