Page:The Zoologist, 3rd series, vol 2 (1878).djvu/408

384 the likelihood of losing my foothold. These voracious young birds vomited a quantity of half-digested remains of Little Auks, and cried pileously. In the young Glaucous Gull the iris is dark blue, gape pink; colour of the bill ashy grey, with horn-coloured tip; legs and feet livid flesh-colour. In the adult the iris is straw- colour; eyelid thick and fleshy, and a bright gamboge-yellow; bill gamboge-yellow ; spot on lower mandible deep orange, inclining to vermilion ; size of spot varying greatly amongst different examples, as does the size of bill. The feet of adults vary in colour from dull flesh to yellowish pink. Many egg-shells of Uria grylle were lying amongst the offal al the breeding place of the Gulls: these must have been originally deposited in exposed situations, otherwise the Gulls could not have secured them. The gneiss rock, of which the island is formed, was covered in many places with lichens of great luxuriance. Flowering plants were not numerous. I saw a few tufts of scurvv-giass, but it did not grow in sufficient quantities to gather for use. A considerable breeding place of Briinnich's Guillemot exists on the north- western island of the group; and in August, 1851, a party from H.M.S. 'Assistance' obtained there a bag of nine hundred looms, dovekies, and rotches. During this visit Mr. Clements Markham, then a midshipman in H.M.S. ' Assistance,' observed several ancient remains of Eskimo, consisting of stone huts, caches, graves, and a fox-trap built of stones. The occupation of these islands by the Eskimo is a matter of considerable interest; for unless these ancient inhabitants used the "kayak" and "oomiak" it is difficult to imagine how they arrived there, the Cary Islands being situated at a considerable distance from land in the great Polynia, usually called the "North Water" of Baffin Bay, and which is probably never completely frozen over, even in the spring or winter. I observed traces of foxes on the south-eastern island; and that, taken in connection with the ancient fox-trap, noticed by Mr. Clements Markham, raises the question how those animals can possibly exist on small rocky islands through the long winter, during which lime the migratory birds are absent. The Glaucous Gulls having selected their breeding place on the steepest cliff, doubtless arose from fear of depredations by foxes. The Cary Islands show traces of recent elevation, for, on the summit of the one we visited, rounded and drifted fragments of sandstone and other erratics are abundant.