224 OUR ARCTIC PROVINCE. 



that quarter, a few from the Asiatic side, and by the milhoiis of 

 their own home-bred and indigenous stock. One of these migra- 

 tory species, a turnstone, however, comes here every summer, for 

 three or four weeks' stay, in great numbers, and actually gets so 

 fat in feeding upon the larvte which abound in the decaying car- 

 casses over the killing-grounds that it usually bursts open when it 

 falls, shot on the wing. A heavy easterly gale once brought a 

 strange bird to the islands from the mainland — a grebe, P. grisei- 

 gena. It was stranded on St. George in 1873, whereupon the natives 

 declared the like of which they had never seen before ; again, I 

 found a robin one cool morning in October, the 15th : the natives 

 told me that it was an accident — brought over by some storm or 

 gale of wind that took it up and off from its path across the tundra 

 of Bristol Bay. The next fair wind sweeping from the north or 

 the west could be so improved by this robin, M. migratoria, that 

 it would spread its wings and as abruptly return. Thus hawks, 

 owls, and a niimber of strange water-fowls visit the islands, but 

 never remain there long. 



The Russians tried the experiment of bringing up from Sitka 

 and Oonalashka a flock of ravens, as scavengers, a number of years 

 ago, and when they were very uncleanly in the village, in con- 

 trast with the practice of the present hour. They reasoned that 

 they would — these ill-omened birds — be invaluable as health offi- 

 cers ; but the Gorvidoe invariably, sooner or later, and within a very 

 short time, took the first wind-train or lightning-express back to 

 the mainland or the Aleutian islands. Yet the natives say that if 

 the birds had been young ones instead of old fellows they would 

 have remained. I saw a great many, however, at St. Matthew 

 Island in August, 1874. 



A glance at the map of St. Paul shows that nearly half of its 

 superficial area is low and quite flat, not much elevated above the 

 sea. Wherever the sand-dune tracts are located, and that is right 

 along the coast, will be found an irregular succession of hummocks 

 and hillocks, drifted by the wind, which are very characteristic. On 

 the summits of these hillocks an Elymus has taken root in times 

 past, and, as the sand drifts up, it keej^s growing on and up too, 

 so that a quaint spectacle is presented of large stretches to the view 

 wherein sand-dunes, entirely bare of all vegetation at their base 

 and on their sides, are crowned with a living cap of the brightest 

 green — a tuft of long, waving grass blades which will not down. 



