ed by its more slender
build and two very long tail-feathers, and it is much more common
farther to the east than on Spitzbergen. I have not had an
opportunity of making any observations on the mode of life of these
birds.

As the skua pursues the kittiwake and the glaucous gull, it is in
its turn pursued with extraordinary fierceness by the little
swiftly-flying and daring bird _taernan_, the Arctic tern (_Sterna
macroura_, Naum.). This beautiful bird is common everywhere on the
coasts of Spitzbergen, but rather rare on Novaya Zemlya. It breeds
in considerable flocks on low grass-free headlands or islands,
covered with sand or pebbles. The eggs, which are laid on the bare
ground without any trace of a nest, are so like lichen-covered
pebbles in colour, that it is only with difficulty one can get eyes
upon them; and this is the case in a yet higher degree with the
newly-hatched young, which notwithstanding their thin dress of down
have to lie without anything below them among the bare stones. From
the shortness of their legs and the length of their wings it is only
with difficulty that the tern can go on the ground. It is therefore
impossible for it to protect its nest in the same way as the
"tjufjo." Instead, this least of all the swimming birds of the Polar
lands does not hesitate to attack any one, whoever he may be, that
dares to approach its nest. The bird circles round the disturber of
the peace with evident exasperation, and now and then goes whizzing
past his head at such a furious rate that he must every moment fear
that he will be wounded with its sharp beak.

Along with the swimmers enumerated above, we find everywhere along
these shores two species of eider, the _vanliga eidern_, common
eider (_Somateria mollissima_, L.) and _praktejdern_, king-duck
(_Somateria spectabilis_, L.). The former prefers to breed on low
islands, which, at the season for laying eggs, are already
surrounded by open water and are thus rendered inaccessible to the
mountain foxes that wander about on the mainland. The richest eider
islands I have seen in Spitzbergen are the Down Islands at Horn
Sound. When I visited the place in 1858 the whole islands were so
thickly covered with nests that it was necessary to proceed with
great caution in order not to trample on eggs. Their number in every
nest was five to six, sometimes larger, the latter case, according
to the walrus-hunters, being accounted for by the female when she
sits steal