167 
Birds of Western Spitsbergen. 
a south-east wind, which would have been the most favourable 
for speeding our voyage ; and in the last three days we had to 
make another circuit of nearly two hundred miles. It was 
therefore with no small satisfaction, that, on the 20th of Sixth 
month (June), about nine in the morning, being the ninth day 
of our voyage, the land we had been so anxiously looking out 
for was seen lying about sixty miles to the eastward. The 
coast appeared very wild and inhospitable; the rugged moun¬ 
tains were capped with dense masses of cloud; the valleys and 
level ground were one sheet of snow, and the shore was guarded 
by an extensive field of ice, which again was surrounded by a 
belt of flat barren islands and jagged ice-covered rocks, known 
as Syd Cap (Eerne, or the South Cape Islands. Almost precisely 
at the midnight following we first set foot on Spitzbergen, on the 
low shingly beach of one of these islets, where the snow had 
thawed for the space of a few acres. It was, of course, broad 
daylight, but not a very cheerful scene ; for a wintry wind drove 
the snow into our faces, while the waves splashed against the 
shore or thundered into the deep-blue hollows of the ice. 
We found on this spot Brent Geese (Bernicla hrenta, Steph.), 
Eider Ducks ( Somateria mollissima, Leach), and Glaucous Gulls 
(Larus glaucus, Briinn.), in immense numbers, and the ground 
was covered with their nests. A few Arctic Terns ( Sterna ma - 
croura , Naum.) were flying overhead, but did not appear to be 
as yet breeding; at least, common as we afterwards found the 
bird to be, we never obtained any eggs of it. The nests of the 
Eider Ducks were hollows scooped in the pebbly ground, very 
scantily lined with down mixed with sea-weed, forming in this 
respect a striking contrast to those of the Brent Goose, whose 
three or four eggs were buried in a perfect mass of down and 
feathers, built on the beach. The large untidy nests of the 
Glaucous Gull, formed of sea-weed, and each containing usually 
three eggs, were to be found also on the shore, or more often 
on the low rocks, and in one or two instances even built on the 
masses of ice. These Gulls tyrannize much over the weaker 
birds in their vicinity; so dense too is their plumage, that shot 
will hardly penetrate their feathers; and those specimens we 
procured were mostly killed with the rifle. Their eggs seem 
n 2 
