f the loom are palatable, and the flesh
is excellent, though not quite free from the flavour of train oil.
In any case it tastes much better than that of the eider.

Along with the rotge and the loom two nearly allied species of
birds, _lunnefogeln_, the Arctic puffin (_Mormon arcticus_, L.)
and _tejsten_ or _tobis-grisslan_, the black guillemot (_Uria
grylle_, L.) are to be seen among the drift-ice. I do not know any
puffin-fells on Spitzbergen. The bird appears to breed there only in
small numbers, though it is still found on the most northerly part
of the island. On Novaya Zemlya, too, it occurs rather sparingly.
The black guillemot, on the other hand, is found everywhere, though
never collected in large flocks, along the shores of Spitzbergen,
and Novaya Zemlya, even as far north as Parry Island in 80 deg.
40' N.L., where in 1861 I saw several of their nests. These are
placed near the summits of steep cliffs along the shore. The black
guillemots often swim out together in pairs in the fjords. Their
flesh has about the same taste as Bruennich's guillemot, but is
tougher and of inferior quality; the eggs, on the other hand, are
excellent.

[Illustration: THE ARCTIC PUFFIN. Swedish, Lunnefogel. (Mormon Arcticus,
L.) THE BLACK GUILLEMOT. Swedish, Tejst. (Uria Grylle, L.) ]

The sea fowl mentioned above are never met with inland.
They never settle on a grassy sward or on a level sandy beach. The
steep fowl-fell sides, the sea, ground-ice, pieces of drift-ice and
small stones rising above the water, form their habitat. They swim
with great skill both on, and under the water. The black guillemots
and rotges fly swiftly and well; Bruennich's guillemots, on the
contrary, heavily and ill. The latter therefore do not perhaps
remove in winter farther from their hatching places than to the
nearest open water, and it is probable that colonies of Bruennich's
guillemots are not located at places where the sea freezes
completely even far out from the coast. On this perhaps depends the
scarcity of Bruennich's guillemot in the Kara Sea.

While sailing in the Arctic Ocean, vessels are nearly always
attended by two kinds of gulls, the greedy _stormaosen_ or
_borgmaesteren_, glaucous gull (_Larus glaucus_, Bruenn.), and the
gracefully formed, swiftly flying _kryckian_ or _tretaoiga maosen_,
kittiwake (_Larus tridactylus_, L.), and if the hunter lies to at an
ice-floe to flense upon it a seal which has been shot, it is not
long till