Arctic Birds. 153 



(Sterna arctica) flew dreamily past the ships in 

 flocks of ten or a dozen, whilst tho delicate-looking 

 ivory gull (Larus eburneus) and the graceful kitte- 

 wake (Larus tridactylus) hovered in our wake. 

 King eider ducks (Somateria spectabilis) were 

 startled as they paddled along the edge of a floe, 

 and flew rapidly past the ship, whilst our constant 

 attendant and scavenger, the fulmar petrel (Pro- 

 cellaria glacialis) followed in our track, swooping 

 down and devouring everything of an edible naturo 

 thrown overboard from the ship. 



At six o'clock we made Cape Charles York, low- 

 looking land, and apparently covered with some 

 description of vegetation, it having a brownish- 

 green sort of colour, which was pleasing to the eye, 

 for we had seen nothing approaching verdure since 

 we bade farewell to the bonnie hills of Scotland. 

 Snow was lying in patches along the land, though 

 the hills were still wearing their winter garb. The 

 land ice, since leaving Navy Board Inlet, had 

 gradually diminished in breadth, until it disappeared 

 off Capo Charles York, from whence, however, as 

 we proceeded to the westward it again increased in 

 breadth, and we found the mouth of Admiralty Inlet 

 impenetrably closed by a heavy and formidable 

 barrier of ice. 



This land ice appeared of great thickness and 

 very hummocky, I should think quite twenty feet 

 in thickness. At about seven, the sun shone out 



