162 
VOYAGE TO GREENLAND. 
the name of Dung Bird, from an erroneous notion, 
that both pursue the kittywakes, to obtain the 
excrement of the fugitive : but I observed them to 
harass the latter, until from fatigue, or fear, the 
kittywake was compelled to disgorge the contents 
of its stomach, which the pursuer caught with 
astonishing dexterity before they reached the water, 
and then the kittywake was no longer molested. 
The Larus Crepidatus has much white about its head 
and neck, breast and belly; its two central tail 
feathers are a little longer than the rest, and are 
black, tipped with white, as are the tips of the wings. 
A perplexing fog with floes of ice having 
August 4. during the last two days 
we could make very little progress, and were kept 
in perpetual anxiety and watchful apprehension 
for the ship’s safety ; and during the long haziness 
we lost our companion. This day at noon, the fog 
began to disperse, and the floes, we were enabled 
to observe, had not only diminished in number but 
in size. The ice, indeed, altogether now wore a 
very different appearance from that which it had 
hitherto presented : it had lost its beautiful snowy 
whiteness, as well as the character and forms which 
it had formerly assumed, with an ever-changing 
variety, that afforded unceasing gratification, and 
tended to render a voyage to Greenland much 
more interesting than to any other part of the 
world. The chaste snow, which gave so agreeable 
a covering to the ice, was now no more to be seen ; 
a dirty forbidding surface became its substitute, and 
