"WONDERFUL SEAL ISLANDS. 223 



These "arries" seem to occupy a ribbon strip in width: it is 

 drawn around the outward edges of the flat table-top to Wah-us 

 Island as a regular belt, reserved all to themselves : while the small 

 grassy interior from which they are thus self-excluded is the only 

 place, I believe, in Bering Sea where the big white gull, Larus 

 glai(cu)<, breeds. Here I found among grassy tussocks the white 

 burgomaster building a nest of dry grass, sea-ferns, Sertularidce, 

 etc., very nicely laid up and rounded, and in which it laid usually 

 three eggs, sometimes only a coiiple ; occasionally I would look in- 

 to a nest with four. These heavy gulls could not breed on either of 

 the other islands in this manner, for the glaucous gull is too large 

 to settle on the narrow shelf-ledges of the cliffs, as the smaller gulls 

 do, and lesser water-fowls, and those places which could receive it 

 wovild also be a happy hunting-ground and footing to the foxes. 



The red-legged kittiwake, Passa hrevirostris, and its cousin, 

 Rissa tridactyla, build in the most amicable manner together on 

 the faces of those cliffs, for they are little gulls, and they associate 

 with cormorants, sea-parrots, and tiny auks, all together, and, with 

 the exception of the last, their nests are very easy of access. All 

 birds, especially the "arries," have an exceedingly happy time of it 

 on this Walrus Islet — nothing to disturb them, in my opinion, free 

 from the ravenous maw of blue foxes over on St. Paul, and from the 

 l^iratical and death-dealing sweep of owls and hawks, which infest 

 the Aleutian chain and the mainland. 



The position of the islands is such as to be somewhat outside 

 of that migratory path pursued by the birds on the mainland, and 

 owing to this reason they are only visited by a few stragglers from 



as the bluffs of Polavina, where they rest on their oars, doze, and smoke nntil 

 the dawning of daylight, or later, perhaps, until the fog lifts enough for them 

 to get a glimpse of the islet which they seek. They row over then in about two 

 hours with their bidarrah. They leave, however, with perfect indifference as 

 to daylight or fog. Nothing but a southeaster can disturb their tranquillity 

 when they succeed in landing on Walrus Island. They would find it as difficult 

 to miss striking the extended reach of St. Paul on their return, as they found 

 it well-nigh impossible to push off from Polavina and find "Morzovia" in a 

 thick, windy fog and running sea. 



Otter Island, or "Bobrovia," is easily reached in almost any weather that 

 is not very stormy, for it looms up high above the water. It takes the bidar- 

 rah about two hours to row over from the village, while I have gone across 

 once in a whale-boat with less than one hour's expenditure of time, sail, and 

 oars en route. 



