40 FROM NORTH POLE TO EQUATOR. 



miles, strive to reach the place where they themselves first saw the 

 light of day. And if, in mid-winter, months after the breeding- 

 places have been left desolate, a sea-bird feels death in his heart, he 

 hastens as long as his strength holds out, that he may, if possible, 

 die in the place where he was cradled. 



The annual assembling of innumerable birds at the breeding- 

 places fills these for several months with a most marvellous life. 

 The communities differ like the sea-birds themselves, and the places, 

 or bergs (as the Norsemen call them), which they people vary also. 

 While some choose only those reefs which rise just above the high- 

 tide mark, and bear no more vegetation than is enough to provide 

 scanty material for the nest hollowed out in the sea-weed heaps, 

 others select islands which rear themselves straight and steep for 

 several hundred feet above the sea, and are either rich in shelves, 

 ledges, cavities, fissures, and other hiding-places, or are covered by 

 a thick layer of peat-like plant remains. The Norseman calls the 

 lower islets ' eider-holms ' (or eider bird-hills, as the German would 

 say), for they are the favourite brooding-places of what is to him 

 the most valuable, and, what is the same thing, the most useful of 

 all sea-birds. The higher islands which rise precipitously from the 

 sea, and are chiefly peopled by auks and gulls, are included under 

 the general name of bird-bergs. 



The observant naturalist is of course tempted to study and 

 describe in detail each individual brooding bird of the sea, but the 

 rich variety of the inhabitants of the bird-bergs of the far north 

 and the variety of their habits impose certain limits. Similarly, 

 lest I exceed the time allowed to me, I must refrain from giving 

 detailed pictures of the habits of all the berg birds, though I think 

 it well at least to outline those of a few in order to bring into promi- 

 nence some of the chief characteristics of sea-bird life. Selection is 

 difficult, but one, at any rate — the eider-duck, which returns every 

 spring to these islands, and helps to beautify them and their sur- 

 roundings so marvellously — must not be left undescribed. 



Three species of these beautiful ducks inhabit or visit European 

 shores; one of these, the true eider-bird, is to be found every 

 summer, even on the north-western islands of Germany, especially 



