128 
THE VOYAGE OF THE VEGA. 
[chap. 
pipe and the keel ” of the breastbone. The flesh is said to 
be coarse and of inferior flavour. 
The land-birds in the Arctic regions are less numerous both 
in species and individuals than the sea-birds. Some of them, 
however, also occur in large numbers. Almost wherever one 
lands, some small greyish brown waders are seen running quickly 
to and fro, sometimes in pairs, sometimes in flocks of ten to 
twenty. It is the most common wader of the north, the 
fjaerylyt of the walrus-hunters, the purple sandpiper {Tringa 
maritima, Briinn.). It lives on flies, gnats, and other land 
insects. Its well-filled crop shows how well the bird knows 
how to collect its food even in regions where the entomologist 
can only with difficulty get hold of a few of the animal forms 
belonging to his field of research. The purple sandpiper lays 
its four or five eggs in a pretty little nest of dry straw on open 
grassy or mossy plains a little distance from the sea. It also 
endeavours to protect its nest by acting a comedy like that of 
the tjufjo. Its flesh is delicious. 
In the company of the purple sandpiper there is often seen a 
somewhat larger wader, or, more correctly, a bird intermediate 
between the w^aders and the swimming birds. This is the 
beautiful hrednaebbade simsnae'ppan, the grey (or red) phalarope 
{Phalaropus fulicarius, Bonap.). It is not rare on Spitzbergen, 
and it is exceedingly common, perhaps even the commonest 
bird on the north coast of Asia. I imagine therefore that it is 
not absent from Novaya Zemlya, though there has hitherto been 
observed there only the nearly allied smalnaehhade simsnaeppan, 
the red - necked phalarope {Phcdaropus hyperhoreus, Lath.). 
This bird might be taken as the symbol of married love, so 
faithful are the male and female, being continually to be seen 
in each other’s company. While they search for their food in 
pools of water along the coast, they nearly always bear each 
other company, swimming in zigzag, so that every now and 
then they brush past each other. If one of them is shot, the 
