316 THE ZOOLOGIST. ~ 
the same species. In the North Atlantic and Baffin Bay the blue 
and light varieties occur in the proportion of about one to ten; but 
I never saw a blue-plumaged bird captured, the light-colonred and 
more powerful birds buffeting the others from the bait. 
Kittiwakes, Rissa tridactyla, all immature birds, followed the 
vessel in June some 150 miles from the Irish coast, and then left. 
As we approached within fifty miles of the shores of Greenland 
they again came round the ship. In autumn this species appears 
distributed over the entire North Atlantic; 1 observed them daily 
between Cape Farewell and Ireland. 
In mid-Atlantic a single Arctic Tern, Sterna macrura, 
approached the ship during a gale of wind. It seemed tired, and 
settled on an empty cask which was thrown overboard. 
In summer Puffinus major is abundant about the fifty-ninth 
parallel, off Cape Farewell, and has received from the whalers the 
name of “Cape Hen.” A second and smaller species is equally 
common, which Mr. Dresser, from my description, surmises, no 
doubt correctly, to be Puffinus griseus. In autumn the range of 
the Greater Shearwater extends over the North Atlantic from the 
latitude of Cape Farewell to the coast of Kerry. 
Small Petrels often followed in the track of the vessel, but as no 
example was captured I am not certain of the species. None 
were noticed to the northward of lat. 57°, two degrees to the south 
of Cape Farewell. 
The Fulmars, Petrels and Gulls that follow a ship disperse and 
quit the wake of the vessel at nightfall. 1 frequently remained on 
deck during the middle watch to notice at what hour the sea-birds 
reappeared. The first to return were the small Petrels; some of 
these arrived with the glimpse of dawn, and might be seen hawking 
like Martins round the ship, Then a Fulmar or two came flying 
towards the vessel from different points of the compass, arriving in 
twos and threes until the usual assemblage had congregated in its 
wake. Sea-birds, according to my observation, do not follow a 
ship during the hours of darkness or in moonlight. 
As we neared the coast of Greenland, in the latitude of Cape 
Desolation, we first encountered ice. It consisted of fragments of 
ancient floes, or ice formed on the surface of the sea by direct 
congelation, ‘The term “floe” is applied by Arctic navigators to 
this description of ice. A “floe” may be miles in extent or only 
a few acres in size. The term “iceberg” or “berg” is applied 
