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 where 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,[61] 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 rounded at both ends. The eggs taste exceedingly
well. The nest is very inconsiderable, smelling badly like the bird
itself.

When the navigator has gone a little further north and come to an
ice-bestrewed sea, the swell ceases at once, the wind is hushed and
the sea becomes bright as a mirror, rising and sinking with a slow
gentle heaving. Flocks of little auks (_Mergulus alle_, L.)
Bruennich's guillemots (_Uria Bruennichii_, Sabine), and black
guillemots (_Uria grylle_, L.) now swarm in the air and swim among
the ice floes. The _alke-kung_ (little auk), also called the "sea
king," or rotge, occurs only sparingly off the southern part of
Novaya Zemlya, and does not, so far as I know, breed there. The
situation of the land is too southerly, the accumulations of stones
along the sides of the mountains too inconsiderable, for the
thriving of this little bird. But on Spitzbergen it occurs in
incredible numbers, and breeds in the talus, 100 to 200 metres high,
which frost and weathering have formed at several places on the
steep slopes of the coast mountain sides; for instance, at Horn
Sound, at Magdalena Bay, on the Norways (near 80 deg. N.L.), and
other places. These stone heaps form the palace of the rotge, richer
in rooms and halls than any other in the wide round world. If one
climbs up among the stones, he sees at intervals actual clouds of
fowl suddenly emerge from the ground either to swarm round in the
air or else to fly out to sea, and at the same time those that
remain make the