3284 THE ZooLoGist— NovEMBER, 1872. 
number; they saw neither young* nor eggs on this ledge, and as the 
wash of the sea broke over it, it would have been impossible for 
eggs or young to have remained there. Many more gare-fowls 
went to sea than what they killed. The gare-fowls were only on 
the ledge, and no other birds were seated alongside of them. They 
then tried to climb from the ledge to the top of the skerry, but 
found it rather difficult to do so: H. Joensen got up first; he had 
a short rope with him, with which he helped the others to get up. 
When they got up they found the top covered with guillemots, and 
the edges fringed with gannets: they sunk half way to the knees in 
the dung of these birds: they were very tame, and they killed all 
they had time to secure: they remained there about one hour 
in all; then a fog came on which hid the schooner; the 
tide was turning, and though there was no wind the sea began 
to rise, which made them desirous to get on board again, they 
killed about two hundred guillemots, and might have taken more 
could they have remained longer on the skerry; the guillemots 
were so tame as to alight on the men as they lay down resting 
on the skerry. The tide was setting westerly by the com- 
pass as they returned to the schooner, and the boat was so full 
of birds they had to leave some of the dead guillemots on the 
ledge, but they did not leave a single dead gare-fowl behind 
them.” 
Wolley (Contrib. Orn. 1850, p. 116) thus refers to this event :— 
“JT saw Daniel Joénsen, captain of a vessel belonging to Govenor 
Loébner, which went in 1813 to fetch provisions from Iceland to the 
half-starved Froese, and brought back some fifty or sixty of the 
gorrfugle, amongst other birds. They got them on one of the 
small rocks, which the natives were afraid to visit, near Iceland.” 
On mentioning the discrepancy in the two narratives to my kind 
friend Professor Newton, he most obligingly favoured me with the 
following information (in litt. ii. 7, 1872). “I am pretty sure I 
have at Cambridge the original copy of Daniel Joensen’s deposition 
made in 1858, and if I am not mistaken at Wolley’s instance: I 
think that Wolley, when in Iceland, became aware of some 
inaccuracies in the notes he had nine years previously taken of 
Joensen’s story, and wrote to Miiller, asking him to get both 
Joensen and Medjord to meet us at Thorshavn on our return, or 
* By the 24th of August the eggs would have been hatched, and probably they 
could not discriminate between adults and young.—H. W. F. 
