exceedingly well, and in consequence of the great development of the breast muscles it affords more food than could be expected from its small size. [Illustration: THE LITTLE AUK, OR ROTGE. Swedish, Alkekung. (_Mergulus Alle_, L.) ] Along with the rotge we find among the ice far out at sea flocks of _alkor_ (looms, or Bruennich's guillemots), and the nearer we come to the coast, the more do these increase in number, especially if the cliffs along the shore offer to this species of sea-fowl--the most common of the Polar lands--convenient hatching places. For this purpose are chosen the faces of cliffs which rise perpendicularly out of the sea, but yet by ledges and uneven places afford room for the hatching fowl. On the guillemot-fells proper, eggs lie beside eggs in close rows from the crown of the cliff to near the sea level, and the whole fell is also closely covered with seafowl, which besides in flocks of thousands and thousands fly to and from the cliffs, filling the air with their exceedingly unpleasant scream. The eggs are laid, without trace of a nest, on the rock, which is either bare or only covered with old birds' dung, so closely packed together, that in 1858 from a ledge of small extent, which I reached by means of a rope from the top of the fell, I collected more than half a barrel-full of eggs. Each bird has but one very large egg, grey pricked with brown, of very variable size and form. After it has been sat upon for some time, it is covered with a thick layer of birds' dung, and in this way the hunters are accustomed to distinguish uneatable eggs from fresh. [Illustration: THE LOOM OR BRUeNNICH'S GUILLEMOT. Swedish, Alka (_Uria Bruennichii_, Sabine). ] If a shot be fired at a "loomery," the fowl fly away in thousands from their hatching places, without the number of those that are not frightened away being apparently diminished. The clumsy and short-winged birds, when they cast themselves out of their places, fall down at first a good way before they get "sufficient air" under their wings to be able to fly. Before this takes place, many plump down into the water, sometimes even into the boat which may be rowed along the foot of the fell.