108 
THE VOYAGE OF THE VEGA. 
[CHAr. 
Long before one enters the region of the Polar Sea proper, the 
vessel is surrounded by flocks of large grey birds which fly, or 
rather hover without moving their wings, close to the surface of 
the sea, rising and sinking with the swelling of the billows, 
eagerly searching for some eatable object on the surface of the 
water, or swim in the wake of the vessel in order to snap up 
any scraps that may be thrown overboard. It is the Arctic 
stormfogel^ (Fulmar, ‘‘Mallemuck,” “Hafhaest,” Procellaria 
glacialis, L.). The fulmar is bold and voracious, and smells 
villanously, on which account it is only eaten in cases of 
necessity, although its flesh, if the bird has not recently devoured 
too much rotten blubber, is by no means without relish, at least 
for those who have become accustomed to the flavour of train 
oil, when not too strong. It is more common on Bear Island 
and Spitzbergen than on Novaya Zemlya, and scarcely appears 
to breed in any considerable numbers on the last-named place. 
I know three places north of Scandinavia whero the fulmar 
breeds in large numbers : the first on Bear Island, on the 
slopes of some not very steep cliffs near the so-called south 
harbour of the island,^ the second on the southern shore of 
Brandywine Bay on North-East Land, the third on ledges of the 
perpendicular rock-walls in the interior of Ice Fjord. At the 
two latter places the nests are inaccessible. On Bear Island, on 
the other hand, one can without very great difficulty plunder the 
whole colony of the dirty grey, short eggs, which are equally 
^ The name stormfogel is also used for the Stormy Petrel {Thalassidroma 
pelagica^ Vig.), This bird does not occur in the portions of the Polar Sea 
with which we are now concerned. 
2 At Bear Island, Tobiesen, on the 28th May, 1866, saw fulmars’ eggs 
laid immediately on the ice which still covered the rock. At one place a 
bird sitting on its eggs was even frozen fast by one leg to the ice on the 
If August, 1596. Barents found on the north part of Novaya Zemlya 
that some fulmars had chosen as a hatching-place a piece of ice covered 
with a little earth. In both these cases the under part of the egg during 
hatching could never be warmed above the freezing-point. 
