564 FAR THE S 2' NORTH 



exhaustive investigations which his residence here has 

 enabled him to make into the ]:)lant-Hfe and animal-hfe 

 (especially the former) of the locality, both by sea and 

 land, will certainly augment in a most valuable degree 

 our knowledge of its biological conditions. I shall not 

 easily forget the many pleasant talks in which he com- 

 municated to me his discoveries and observations. They 

 were all eagerly absorbed by a mind long deprived of 

 such sustenance. I felt like a piece of parched soil 

 drinking in rain after a drouth of a whole year. 



I^ut other di\'ersions were also available. If my 

 brain grew fatigued with unwonted labor, I could set 

 off with Jackson for the top of the moraine to shoot 

 auks, which swarmed under the basalt walls. They 

 roosted in hundreds and hundreds on the shelves and 

 ledges above us ; at other places the kittiwakes brooded 

 on their nests. It was a refreshing scene of life and 

 activity. As we stood up there at a height of 500 feet, 

 and could look far out over the sea, the auks flew in 

 swarms backward and forward over our heads, and every 

 now and then we would knock over one or two as 

 they passed. Every time a gun was fired the report 

 echoed through all the rocky clefts, and thousands of 

 birds flew shrieking down from the ledges. It seemed 

 as though a blast of wind had swept a great dust-cloud 

 down from the crest above ; but little by little they re- 

 turned to their nests, many of them meanwhile falling to 

 our guns. Jackson had here a capital larder, and he made 



