Page:Audubon and His Journals.djvu/436

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384
AUDUBON

torda, which they call "Tinkers."[1] The Mormon, they call "Sea Parrots." Each species seems to have its own island except the Alca torda, which admits the Guillemots. As we advanced, we passed by a rock literally covered with Cormorants, of what species I know not yet; their effluvia could be perceived more than a mile off. We made the fine anchorage where we now are about four o'clock. We found some difficulty in entering on account of our pilot being an ignorant ass; twice did we see the rocks under our vessel. The appearance of the country around is quite different from that near American Harbor; nothing in view here as far as eye can reach, but bare, high, rugged rocks, grand indeed, but not a shrub a foot above the ground. The moss is shorter and more compact, the flowers are fewer, and every plant more diminutive. No matter which way you glance, the prospect is cold and forbidding; deep banks of snow appear here and there, and yet I have found the Shore Lark (Alauda alpestris[2]) in beautiful summer plumage. I found the nest of the Brown Lark (Anthus spinoletta[3]) with five eggs in it; the nest was planted at the foot of a rock, buried in dark mould, and beautifully made of fine grass, well and neatly worked in circularly, without any hair or other lining. We shot a White-crowned Sparrow, two Savannah Finches, and saw more, and a Red-bellied Nuthatch; this last bird must have been blown here accidentally, as not a bush is there for it to alight upon. I found the tail of an unknown Owl, and a dead Snow-bird which from its appearance must have died from cold and famine. John brought a young Cormorant alive from the nest, but I cannot ascertain its species without the adult, which we hope to secure to-morrow. At dusk the "Gul-

  1. This is the usual sailors' name of the Razor-billed Auk in Labrador and Newfoundland, and was the only one heard by me in Labrador in 1860 (see Proc. Acad Nat. Sci., 1861, p.249).—E. C.
  2. Now Otocorys alpestris—E.G.
  3. Now Anthus pennsylvanicus,—E. C.