THE BIRD-BERGS OF LAPLAND. 57 



in the sea, stood out distinctly from the water, and broke up 

 the blue-green colouring of the waves. Their number was so great 

 that from the top of the berg, which was over three hundred feet 

 high, we could not see where the swarm ended, could not discover 

 where the sea was clear from birds. In order to make a calcula- 

 tion, I measured out a small square with my eye, and began to 

 count the points in it. There were more than a hundred. Then 

 I endeavoured mentally to place several similar squares together, 

 and soon came to thousands of points. But I might have imagined 

 many thousands of such squares together and yet not exhausted 

 the space covered by birds. The millions of which I had been 

 told were really there. This picture of apparent quiet only lasted 

 for a few moments. The birds soon began to fly upwards again, 

 and as before, hundreds of thousands rose simultaneously from the 

 water to ascend the hill, as before a cloud formed round it, and 

 our senses were again bewildered. Unable to see, and deafened 

 by the indescribable noise about me, I threw myself on the ground, 

 and the birds streamed by on all sides. New ones crept constantly 

 out of their holes, while those we had previously startled now crept 

 back again; they settled all about me, looking with comical amaze- 

 ment at the strange form among them, and approaching with 

 mincing gait so close to me that I attempted to seize them. The 

 beauty and charm of life showed themselves in every movement of 

 these remarkable birds. With astonishment I saw that even the 

 best pictures of them are stiff and cold, for I remarked in their 

 quaint forms a mobility and liveliness with which I had not credited 

 them. They did not remain still a single instant, their heads and 

 necks at least were moved incessantly to all sides, and their 

 contours often showed most graceful lines. It seemed as though 

 the inoffensiveness with which I had given myself up to observing 

 them, had been rewarded by unlimited confidence on their part. 

 The thousands just about me were like domestic birds; the millions 

 paid me no more attention than if I had been one of themselves. 

 I spent eighteen hours on this bird-berg in order to study the 

 life of the auks.* When the midnight sun stood large and blood-red 

 in the sky and cast its rosy light on the sides of the hill there came 



