116 
BIRDS. 
with detritus, which we expected to reach in a few 
minutes, a hard hour’s pull left us the meagre satis- 
faction of finding the object perched on the summit 
of a lofty herg, whose base was even then below the 
horizon. That isolated projection upon an expanded 
level, and destitution of points of comparison, which 
make the pyramids so deceptive to the Egyptian trav- 
eler as he approaches them over the desert, have an 
equally marked application to the icebergs of the Polar 
Seas. 
We had been struck, as I have mentioned already, 
by the absence of birds since our approach to the mid- 
dle ice. Now, however, our stay had been so pro- 
longed, that the absentees began to meet us on their 
return. Among the first and most welcome was the 
little Auk, the Rotge of the whalers, coming down from 
its breeding-places in the still further north. 
This bird, the Uria alle of Temminck, occupies, ac- 
cording to the ornithologists, an intermediate position 
between the Auk and the Guillemot. It is of the size 
of a partridge, fat, and delicately flavored ; and it came 
to us in such immense flocks as to form a highly im- 
portant addition to our diet list. 
Indeed, no other bird migrates in such numbers, oi 
contributes so largely to the pleasures of the Arctic 
table. Sir James Ross, in the Investigator, killed 
four thousand ; and Mr. Martin, of the whale-ship En- 
terprise, who received the parting farewell of Sir John 
Franklin in this region, assures us that this far-sighted 
commander had killed and salted down so many of 
these birds as to augment his resources by nearly a 
two years’ supply of food. For ourselves, without any 
special organization for the pursuit, we shot enough 
of them, from the time of their arrival till we entered 
