LEAVING SHUMAGIN ISLANDS 105 



the less possible it is to winter here * on account of lack of wood 

 for building and for fuel and, moreover, because the island on 

 which we watered seems to be continuous with the mainland in 

 the north,233 while none of the others seem to be very distant 

 from it. 



Even though the weather on September 6 was cloudy through- 

 out the day, yet because the wind was SW by S and serviceable 

 for our getting away, we went around the eastern side of the 

 island 234 out to sea between two islands.235 The Americans on 

 shore raised their voices once more as a farewell, and it seemed 

 to us as if we saw people and huts on the near-by low island lying 

 opposite to the east.236 When we were out to sea about half a 

 mile, we were especially astonished at the untold numbers of 

 sea birds which we saw on the northern side of the island. I 

 noted here, besides the urili (Pelecani), auks, sea parrots, gulls, 

 ghipyshi"^^^ {Procellaria glacialis), and Greenland sea pigeons, 

 an entirely black snipe, with red bill and feet, which constantly 

 moved the head like Ray's redshank; 238 further a very beautiful 



* Steller did not know the underground huts of the islanders and their 

 cold- defying hardiness like that of the Greenlanders; nor did he consider 

 that almost everywhere on the islands they can have a sufficient supply 

 of driftwood, about which more may be read hereafter. — P. 



233 Nagai Island is, of course, not continuous with the mainland. 



23< Bird Island. 



235 Bird Island and Chernabura Island (see Vol. i, p. 337, and, above. 

 Figs. 12 and 13). 



23« As Chernabura Island is "high and mountainous" (United States 

 Coast Pilot, Alaska: Part II, Yakutat Bay to Arctic Ocean, U. S. Coast 

 and Geodetic Survey, Washington, 1916, p. 168) it is not clear which 

 Steller means by "the near-by low island" although Chernabura otherwise 

 fits the location indicated. Possibly the "rocky islet" which "lies off its 

 northern end" (Coast Pilot, p. 168) is meant. 



237 From a Russian word meaning fool, stupid fellow, etc., used by the 

 Russians in Kamchatka for the fulmar, the Pacific form of Fulmarus 

 glacialis (Linnaeus). SeeSt^'ineger, U.S. Natl. Museum Bull. 29, 1885, p. 

 91. On the birds in this list not here identified, see, above, p. 80. (S) 



238 This bird was Haematopus bachmani (Audubon), originally de- 

 scribed as a snipe (black snipe, Thomas Pennant: Arctic Zoology, 

 Vol. 2, London, 1785, p. 469, Scolopax nigra Gmelin). It occurs from 



