Animal Life in Nova Zembla. 275 



one finds the coast thickly filled with them in some spots, and they 

 receive any one who approaches with loud cries. Above all, the 

 Foolish Guillemot ( Una Troile), which is perhaps as numerous as all 

 the other birds put together, dwells in such colonies, sitting in thick 

 troops and in many rows one above another upon the scarcely percep- 

 tible shelves of perpendicular rocks : they rouse themselves when 

 any one approaches, and cause the sides of the dark rock to appear 

 spotted with their uplifted white bellies. The Russians call such a 

 brooding place a bazaar. Thus this Persian word has been transplanted 

 by Russian Walrus-fishers to the rocks of the frozen ocean and applied 

 to birds in default of human inhabitants. Upon the points of isolated 

 cliffs, and enduring no other birds near it, lives the large grey sea gull 

 (Larus glaucus), which the Dutch whale-fishers, I know not why, 

 whether from respect or a want of it, have named the Burgomaster. 

 It seems to feel itself the lord of this creation, for before a whole 

 company of fishermen it is bold enough to pick and choose from the 

 fish that have been thrown upon the shore. 



These birds are the best proofs that there is more to be had from the 

 bottom of the sea than on land. In fact here the chief sum of animal 

 life is sunk under the surface of the ocean. Small Crustacea are parti- 

 cularly numerous here, and above all the Gammari, which gather as 

 thickly around a piece of flesh thrown into the water as do the gnats in 

 Lapland about a warm-blooded animal. With a sieve one may take 

 them up by thousands. When we threw fines in Matotschkin-Schar, 

 the Walrus-fishers, who never took this trouble assured us that it would 

 be quite in vain, for in the first place there were hardly any fish there, 

 and moreover the Kapschaki (thus they call the Gammari) completely 

 consume within a few hours sometimes the bait and sometimes the fish 

 as soon as it is dead. In fact we seldom drew up anything but our 

 empty lines. 



Scanty as is the vegetation, it yet feeds a quantity of lemmings. 

 Gentle declivities are frequently burrowed through in every direction 

 by them. But the number of animals is not near so great as might 

 be supposed from the quantity of burrows ; for by far the greater part 

 are empty, which one may soon be convinced of by tracking them 

 with dogs, but nevertheless their number is so considerable as to 

 force us to ask how so many lemmings can find support upon such 

 a vegetation. But it is also not impossible that the vegetation appears 

 so small to the observer because the lemmings make a considerable 

 portion of it invisible. If they devoured the roots not much of the 

 vegetable kingdom of Nova Zembla could long remain, and the lem- 

 mings themselves would soon perish from want of nourishment. But 



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