Birds, 



8125 



either guillemots or razorbills, and their station was further removed 

 from the sea. They were easily frightened by noise, but not by what 

 they saw. They sometimes uttered a few low croaks. They have 

 never been known to defend their eggs, but would bite fiercely if they 

 had the chance when caught. They walk or run with little, short 

 steps, and go straight like a man. One has been known to drop down 

 some two fathoms off the rock into the water. Finally, 1 may add 

 that the colour of the inside of their mouths is said to have been 

 yellow, as in the allied species. 



In 1846 Eldey was visited by Vilhjalmur and a party, and no gare- 

 fowls could be found. In J 858 Mr. Wolley and I remained at Kyrk- 

 juvogr, with two short intervals, from May 21st to July 14th. Our 

 chief object was to reach not only Eldey, but the still more distant 

 Geirfugladrangr, on which probably no man has set foot since the 

 Swedish Count, in 1821, with so much difficulty reached it. Boats 

 and men were engaged, and stores for the trip laid in ; but not a single 

 opportunity occurred when a landing would have been practicable. 

 I may say that it was with heavy hearts that we witnessed the season 

 wearing away without giving us the wished-for chance. The following 

 summer was equally tempestuous, and no voyage could be attempted. 

 Last year (1860), on the 13th of June, Vilhjalmur successfully landed 

 on Eldey, but he found no trace of a greak auk, and the weather pre- 

 vented his proceeding to the outer island. Later in the year a report 

 reached Copenhagen, which was subsequently published in the news- 

 paper * Flyveposten' (No. 273), to the effect that two eggs of this bird 

 had been taken on one of the skerries and sold in England for fabulous 

 prices. Through the kind interest of several friends, I think I am in 

 a position to assert that the statement is utterly false. The last 

 accounts I have received from Iceland, under date of June 20th, 

 in the present year (1861), make no mention of any expedition this 

 summer. I am not very sanguine of a successful result, but I trust 

 yet to be the means of ascertaining whether, at the sinking of the true 

 Geirfuglasker, some of the colony, deprived of their wonted haunt, 

 may not have shifted their quarters to the Geirfugladrangr, as others, 

 we presume, did to Eldey, and to this end I have taken, and shall 

 continue to take, the necessary steps. 



But to sum up the account of Mr. Wolley's personal researches. 

 The very day after our arrival at Kyrkjuvogr he picked up from a heap 

 of blown sand two or three birds' wing-bones {humeri).* He was at 



* They were from the side of a channel blown out by the wind from a heap 

 formerly drifted there, such as in the eastern counties of England would be called 

 a "Sand-gall." 



