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° 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 Brünnich'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; Brünnich'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 Brünnich'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 Brünnich'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_, Brünn.), 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 a large number of snow-white birds with dark blue bills and black legs settle down in the neighbourhood in order that they may get a portion of the spoil. They belong to the third kind of gull common in the north, _ismaosen_, the ivory gull (_Larus eburneus_, Gmel.).