Page:The open Polar Sea- a narrative of a voyage of discovery towards the North pole, in the schooner "United States" (IA openpolarseanarr1867haye).pdf/292

ARCTIC BIRDS. freeze. They were the Dovekie of Southern Greenland,—the Uria grylle of the naturalist. They are often seen about Disco Island and Upernavik in the winter time, but I was much surprised to find them denizens of the Arctic night so near the Pole. It was a singular sight to see them paddling about in the caves, under the ice-foot, at 30° below zero, uttering their plaintive cry, and looking for all the world like homeless children, shoeless and in rags, crouching for shelter beneath a door-stoop on a bleak December night. I wanted one of them badly for a specimen, but it would have required something stronger than the claims of science to have induced me to harm a feather of their trembling little heads.