222 OUR ARCTIC PROVINCE. 



I am much divided in my admiration of the two great bird-rook, 

 eries of this Pribylov group, the one on the face of the high bluffs 

 at St. George, and the other on the table-top of Walrus Islet ; but 

 perhaps the latter place gives, within the smallest area, the greatest 

 variety of nesting and breeding birds, for here the " arrie " and 

 many gulls, cormorants, sea-parrots, and auks come to lay their 

 eggs in countless numbers. The face and brow of the low, cliff- 

 like sea-front to this island are occupied almost exclusively by the 

 "arries," Lomvia arra, which lay a single egg each on the surface 

 of the bare rock, and stand, just like so many champagne bottles, 

 straddling over them while hatching, only leaving at irregular inter- 

 vals to feed, and then not until their mates relieve them. Hun- 

 dreds of thousands of these birds alone are thus engaged about 

 the 29th of every June on this little rocky island, roosting stacked 

 up together as tight as so many sardines in a box, as compactly as 

 they can be stowed, each and all of them uttering an incessant, 

 muffled, hoarse, grunting noise. How fiercely they quarrel among 

 themselves everlastingly ! and in this way thousands of eggs are 

 rolled off into the sea, or into crevices, or into fissures, where they 

 are lost and broken. 



The " arrie " lays but one egg. If it is removed or broken, she 

 will soon lay another ; but if undisturbed after depositing the first, 

 she undertakes its hatching at once. The size, shape, and colora- 

 tion of this egg, among the thousands which came under my ob- 

 servation, are exceedingly variable. A large proportion of the eggs 

 become so dirty by rolling here and there in the guano while the 

 birds tread and fight over them as to be almost unrecognizable. I 

 was struck by a happy adaptation of nature to their rough nest- 

 ing. It is found in the toughness of this shell of the egg, so tough 

 that the natives, when gathering them, throw them as farmers do 

 apples into their tubs, baskets, etc., on the cliff, and then carry 

 them down to a general heap of collection near the boats' land- 

 ing, where they are poured out upon the rocks with a single flip of 

 the hand, just as a sack of potatoes would be emptied ; and then 

 again, after this, they are quite as carelessly handled when loaded 

 into the "bidarrah," sustaining through it all a very trifling loss 

 from crushed or broken specimens. * 



* To visit Walrus Island in a boat, pleasantly and successfully, it is best to 

 submit to the advice and direction of the natives. They leave the village in 

 the evening, and, taking advantage of the tide, proceed along the coast as far 



