The Zoologist — January, 1874 3819 



They seemed to be diving far beneath the floe, coming up obliquely 

 like rockets from under the ice with unusual velocity on their return 

 to the surface, as if they could not have held their breath another 

 moment. Fortunately we had no Good Templars on board, for 

 they would have displayed more than their usual acerbity at seeing 

 the looms; for they are birds to which Artemus Ward's definition 

 of babies is strictly applicable, — beings completely destitute of all 

 moral and religious feeling, strongly addicted to drink. Their 

 powers of imbibing are enormous; they are always sipping; and 

 the water they sip is not plain water, but water with something in 

 it — fermented liquor, no doubt, for it is obtained from " the yeasty 

 waves." And yet they are never the worse for it. This last con- 

 sideration, together with the fact of the liquor costing nothing, would 

 fairly drive the teetotaller wild, for his favourite pleas for absti- 

 nence would be taken out of his moulh, and he would not have a 

 word to say against the besotted creatures. It speaks much for the 

 morality of the British sailor, that his indulgence in drink comes 

 far short of the habitual excess of the looms and dovekies. Even 

 so long ago as Lord Mulgrave's Expedition, he seems to have made 

 no complaints about the meagreness of the allowance of liquor 

 served out to him ; and yet such was the parsimony of the Naval 

 Administration at that time that they only allowed each man one 

 bottle of brandy and a gallon of beer per diem on board His 

 Majesty's ships in Greenland {i. e. Spitsbergen). 



Mergulus alle (Little Auk). — The rotche when it flies has always 

 the appearance of being rather behind its time; it seems in such a 

 tremendous hurry, and starts off" with its mouth crammed full of 

 food, as if it had been suddenly called away in the middle of dinner. 

 You may see a party of them on the water — six or seven birds — 

 take wing together to return to their nests. You think they are all 

 gone, but you are wrong; for without pausing for an instant to 

 see whereabouts they are, Nos. 8, 9 and 10 come flying up from 

 under water one after the other, and take after the others at full 

 speed. People in former days suspected them of being subject to 

 goitre during the breeding time ; but a little observation showed 

 them that the birds kept small aquaria in their mouths rather over- 

 stocked with shrimps to be exactly healthy for the shrimps. 



Fratercula arctica (Puffin). — The following are places where 

 we found the Greenland Parrot familiarly designated " Tommy 

 Noddy": — the Western Ice; Table and Walden Islands ; Lomme, 



