8116 



Birds. 



had said, with some reason ridicules* his predecessor's notion of that 

 event being thus heralded, and asserts that no more birds were seen 

 in the year mentioned than previously. But it seems to me improbable 

 that Anderson should have no grounds for his statement, though of 

 course I do not admit the portentous inference, and, if so, it is not 

 unlikely that the renewal of visits to the Geirfuglasker, in 1732, may 

 have been prompted by the report the last-named author mentions of 

 the bird's abundance three years before. On the other hand, I am 

 unable to connect this reported abundance with any other physical 

 phenomenon. I do not find that the period just previous to 1729 

 was marked by any volcanic outbursts or the presence of any extra- 

 ordinary amount of floating ice, either of which events might be sup- 

 posed to affect the bird's movements. 



In 1755, Eggert Olafsen and Bjarne Povelsen, to whose accurate 

 account of Iceland I have already alluded, explored the Gulbringu 

 Sysla, which comprehends the south-western corner of the island, and 

 they passed the following winter at Videy (op. cit. pp. 848, 849), 

 during which time it is mentioned that they saw both the bird and its 

 egg, which had been obtained from the Reykjanes skerry by some 

 Sudnes boats (p. 983). A few years later, Mohr, in his work, which 

 I have also before mentioned, says (op. cit. p. 28), that he was assured 

 by the peasants that the bird was blind when on land, a notion not 

 entertained by the Faeroese, but which still prevails in Iceland. He 

 was also told that in former days people had filled their boats with 

 its eggs from the Reykjanes station, and though he does not expressly 

 say so, I think we may infer from these authorities that about the 

 middle or towards the end of the last century this Geirfuglasker was 

 constantly visited by fowling expeditions. Local tradition makes the 

 same assertion, assigning the leadership of these adventurous exploits 

 to one Svenbjorn Egilsson, born in 1700, and Hannes Erlendsson, 

 born in 1705 ; but later their place was taken by one Hreidar Jonsson, 

 whom people now living can remember as a blind pauper some eighty 

 years of age, with a long beard. This hero was born, as it appears, in 

 1719, and used to go yearly to the skerry on behalf of Kort Jonsson, a 

 rich farmer at Kyrkjubol, who flourished between 1710 and 1760. 

 Hreidar is even reported to have made during one summer three expe- 

 ditions, in which he acted as foreman. After his time the practice 

 seems to have died out; but one witness informed us that, to the best 

 of his recollection, people had made voyages between 1784 and 1800. 



* 1 Tilf'oi ladelige Eflcvrelninger om Island, &c.' Kjobenhavn, 1752, pp. 175, 

 17(i. 



