218 Mr. A. Newton on the Birds of Spitsbei^gen. 



on the undercliiF of the Alkenhorn ; so diminished in number 

 were its once swarming tenants. Yet a good many remained, 

 though these were fast hastening away : some, it would seem, were 

 in too great a hurry to leave; for on the 16th, as I was watching 

 the young Guillemots performing their perilous descent from 

 their natal cliffs to the sea, one (whose mother had miscalculated 

 its powers of flight, and induced it to make the attempt too soon) 

 fell nearly half a mile short of the water, and was rescued by 

 Ludwig from a Burgomaster, which (notwithstanding the solici- 

 tude of its parent, whose cries, as she flew round, first attracted 

 my attention) would doubtless have soon made short work of it. 

 It was scarcely so big as a Rotche, but had its wings sufficiently 

 developed to be of some service. I was much interested at thus 

 obtaining positive evidence of the early age at which these hardy 

 nestlings betake themselves to encounter the dangers of the deep. 

 Some of the old Guillemots had begun to undergo an alteration 

 in their plumage, the white feathers of winter already appearing 

 on their sooty-black throats. The Dovekies had nearly all taken 

 their departure from the inner waters, and most that now showed 

 themselves were birds of the year in their pretty marbled dress 

 of grey and white. Young Kittiwakes, with their collared necks 

 and black-tipped tails, mixed also in the scanty flocks of this 

 species that now presented themselves. Ivory-Gulls occasionally 

 paid us a visit; and on the 16th I had the luck to shoot two, 

 right and left, which I destined for the colle(!tion of a worthy 

 member of the ' Ibis ' fraternity. Early in the morning of the 

 17th, during a dead calm, the salt-water of the Haven was 

 covered with a thin skim of newly-formed ice — a pretty fair hint 

 to us to be gone. On the 18th I visited the Eiderstone, on 

 which were more than a dozen nests still with eggs, though on 

 the point of hatching, and I gathered a goodly bundle of down. 

 On the 20th, going to the ridge on the east side of the Haven 

 to collect plants and fossils, I found Purple Sandpipers congre- 

 gated in a flock on the rocks. All this time my friends had 

 been away up the Sound in the sloop. They returned on the 

 21st of August — having explored the South Fjord, penetrated to 

 the furthest extremity of Sassen Bay (where a Pomatorhine Skua 

 had been unquestionably recognized by its curiously-formed tail). 



