Page:The Zoologist, 4th series, vol 3 (1899).djvu/93

Rh scrambled along shore, and came to an inlet of blue-green water, framed by the scorched red granite rock, and with a dazzlingly white beach of broken shells and coral in places. The contrast of colours made a brilliant picture. Six or eight Black Guillemots were fishing, each one going off with its fish when caught to feed young. Others were certainly nesting on an islet upon which we were not allowed to land, as the wooden cross and watcher's hut proclaimed it an æg-vaer, or Eider hatchery. One of those seen was in the barred plumage; can it have been a last year's bird unusually late in assuming the adult dress?

Fratercula arctica.—Many Puffins were seen from the deck of the 'Lyngen' as we ran across from Kvitnaes on the Vannö to the mouth of Lyngen Fjord.

Colymbus arcticus.—We rarely met with a lake or pool of any size that had not a pair of Divers upon it, usually followed by their two young ones in the down. On the 14th we saw three settle upon the Praestvand, the lake in the woods behind Tromsö which supplies the town with water. At Skjervö they were constantly passing to and fro, uttering harsh cries while on the wing. As we watched the midnight sun a fine pair of Black-throated Divers with their young floated upon a pool just below us. Probably a dozen places were found where trampled water-weeds and pieces of egg-shell showed that young had been hatched. One pair had bred at the Kvalö pools. Others were seen near Svolvaer; one pair near Oos on the 25th had well-grown young.

C. septentrionalis.—The Red-throated Diver was not less numerous. Three were wailing in the inner bay as we landed at Skjervö on the 17th. As we came to one of the small sheets of water amongst the birch-clad hills, a pair were much excited, barking and rushing about the pool. We took this as an indication of eggs or young, but on returning an hour later the birds were gone. On the 19th we came across a string of lakelets in the woods towards the northern end of Tromsö Island. Upon the uppermost one floated a fine pair of Red-throated Divers amongst the flowers of the small yellow water-lily (Nuphar pumilum). They must have had young, as before taking flight they swam up to within twenty yards of us, and we could not but wonder how long they would survive if guilty of such temerity in less unsophisticated latitudes. A pair had a single young one at