Almost equally common with the preceding is the _Colymbus troile_, a clumsy bird, weighing two pounds or upwards, and measuring only sixteen or seventeen inches in length, and twenty-eight inches across the wings, when full spread, in breadth. It cannot rise on the wing in any direction except to windward. If it attempts to fly to leeward, it runs for a considerable distance along the surface of the water, and at length falls into it. Both in this instance and that of the doveca, shortness of tail is compensated for by the feet, which are used as a rudder in flying. The _Colymbus glacialis_ was seen by captain Phipps on the coast of Spitzbergen. The sea-swallow, or great tern, _Sterna hirundo_, is an elegant bird, common on the shore of Spitzbergen, but is not met with at a distance from land. Its length is seven or eight inches, and including the tail fourteen, and the spread of its wings twenty-nine or thirty inches. It flies with great ease and swiftness, and to a considerable height. It defends its eggs and young with great boldness from the Arctic gull, and even descends within a yard of the head of any person who ventures to molest them, startling him with its loud screams. It lays its eggs among the shingle of the beach above high-water mark, where the full power of the sun falls. There are several varieties of the gull tribe. The kittywake, _Larus rissa_, is seen in every part of the northern Atlantic from Britain to the highest latitudes. It is a better fisher than its enemy, the Arctic gull, _Larus parasiticus_, by whom it is pursued until it gives up the food it has procured. The latter kind of gull lives at the expense of its neighbours, preying upon their eggs and their young. _Larus crepidatus_ and _Larus eburneus_ are other varieties. The latter, remarkable for its immaculate whiteness, is as ravenous as the fulmar. _Larus glaucus_, burgomaster, is the chief magistrate of the feathered tribe in the Spitzbergen regions, as none of its class dare dispute its authority, or refuse at its bidding to surrender their prey. It is a large and powerful bird, twenty-eight inches in length, and five inches in breadth across the wings. The kittywake, snow-bird, and burgomaster, are sometimes shot for the sake of their feathers. The two latter species are very shy. They are shot with the greatest ease, however, from a house built of snow on the ice. The _Tringa hypoleucos_, sandpiper, and the _Emberiza nivalis_, snow-bunting, are inhabitants also of these regions. A bird of great delicacy and smallness is _Fringilla linaria_, the lesser redpole. On our approach to Spitzbergen, several of this species alighted on the ship, and were, apparently, so wearied by flight that they allowed themselves to be taken alive. It is difficult to understand how this small bird manages to perform the journey from Spitzbergen to a milder climate, without becoming exhausted and perishing by the way.