NOTES OF A NATURALIST ON SPITZBERGEN. 331 



tion is much more troublesome and dirt}' than the skinning 

 of an} r land animal of which I have had experience. We were off 

 Is Fjord about 11 a.m., but found it completely blocked by ice, so 

 continued south and reached Bel Sound about 4 p. m , and 

 anchored in the harbour on the south side of Middle Hook, just 

 to the east of Separation Point, the position of which was 

 ascertained to be lat. 77° 38' 20", long. 14° 52' 30" E. I went 

 off with a party in a boat in a south-east direction, past a cliff on 

 which were quantities of Kittiwakes and Glaucous Gulls, Guille- 

 mots, Little Auks, and a few Puffins ; whether they were all 

 breeding there I cannot say. As we were passing, a short 

 distance off the cliff, I observed a Little Auk fly to and catch a 

 Gull's droppings, before it had fallen many yards. We landed 

 immediately beyond this cliff, where there was just standing 

 room between the cliff and the sea ; one of the party here found 

 an adult fox, dead ; I suppose it had missed its footing when 

 hunting high up ; I kept its skull. We landed again a little 

 farther on, at the mouth of a small river, where the mountains 

 receded a bit from the shore, leaving a sort of amphitheatre, with 

 perpendicular sides, and sloping gradually and irregularly up- 

 wards towards the back. As we came to land, we saw about three 

 Purple Sandpipers close down to the water's edge, by the mouth 

 of the river (the tide was about full), of which we shot a couple ; 

 and later on ten or a dozen more were obtained. Observed a 

 pair or two of Snow Buntings, one of which was shot ; and also 

 saw two or three Richardson's Skuas. I walked a little way 

 inland, but found bird life almost entirely absent. There is a 

 "loomery" on the cliff forming the west boundary of the "amphi- 

 theatre " ; the birds breed (chiefly at any rate) on the east face, 

 and not on the south, which is the one facing the sea. It is, I 

 suppose, the bird cliff that Chapman (who was in another boat) 

 mentions — " He went ashore and visited a huge ' loomery,' but 

 saw no interesting birds ; all quantity, no quality." In the 

 evening a Ringed Seal swam up towards the shijD, apparently out 

 of curiosity ; it was greeted with a salute of three rifles, one 

 of which took effect, but not killing it. Seeing this, I jumped 

 into a boat lying alongside, followed by one of the other pas- 

 sengers, without waiting to take any weapon, and we rowed away 

 in chase as hard as we could go. After a smart pull we overtook 

 it, and got close to it, well within gun-shot, but having no 



