"At open places in the sea there are found here in winter, the Chukches say, two swimming birds, the loom (Uria Brünnichii, Sabine) and the Black guillemot (Uria grylle, L.) Of the former we obtained two specimens for the first time on the 1st May, of the latter on the 19th of the same month. Possibly there winter in open places of the sea besides these birds a species of Mergulus, one of which came to the winter quarters of the Vega on the 3rd November, and a Fuligula, a specimen of which was sold to us on the 9th March by a Chukch, who said he had killed it at a clearing off the coast"
After the arrival of the migratory birds hunting excursions began to form a welcome interruption in our monotonous winter life, and the produce of the hunting a no less agreeable change from the preserved provisions. The Chukches besides offered us daily a large number of different kinds of birds, especially when they observed that we paid a higher price for many rare kinds of birds, though small and of little use for food, than for a big, fat goose. The Chukches killed small birds either by throwing stones, or by shooting them with bow and arrows, in connection with which it may be observed that most of them were very poor archers. They also caught them with whalebone snares set on bare spots on the beach, generally between two vertebræ of the whale. For pebbles are very scarce, but the bones of the whale are found, as has been already stated, at most places in large numbers on the strand-banks where the tents are pitched. In June we began to get eggs of the gull, eider, long-tailed duck, goose, and loom, in sufficient number for table use. The supply, however, was by no means so abundant as during the hatching season on Greenland, Spitzbergen, or Novaya Zemlya.
A little way from the vessel there were formed, in the end of May, two "leads," a few fathoms in breadth. On the 31st May I sent some men to dredge at these places. They returned with an abundant yield, but unfortunately the openings closed again the next day, and when I and Lieutenant Bove visited the place there was a large, newly-formed toross thrown up along the edge of the former channel. Another "lead" was formed some days after, but closed again through a new disturbance of the position of the ice, a high ice-rampart, formed of loose blocks, heaped one over another, indicating the position of the
SABINEA SEPTEMCARINATA (SABINE).
Natural size.
EVERTEBRATES FROM THE SEA AT THE "VEGA'S" WINTER QUARTERS.
