Note 94 — Chapter IX · WONDERFUL SEAL ISLANDS.

Using the egg of our domestic fowl, the hen, as a standard, the following note made in regard to the size and quality of the eggs of the sea-birds of these waters may not be uninteresting to many. When daily served on St. George, during June and July, with eggs of indigenous sea-fowl, I recorded my gastronomic comparisons which occurred then as I ate them. Here follows a recapitulation:

Fresh-laid eggs of “lupus,” or F. glacialis: Best eggs known to the islands; can be soft-boiled or fried, etc., and are as good as our own hens’ eggs; the yolk is light and clear; the size thereof is in shape and bulk like a duck’s egg; it has a white shell. Season: June 1st to 15th, inclusive; scarce on St. Paul, and not abundant on St. George.

Fresh-laid eggs of “arrie,” or L. arra: Very good; can be soft-boiled or fried; are best scrambled; yolks are dark; no strange taste whatever to them; pyriform in shape; large as a goose-egg; shell gayly-colored; they are exceedingly abundant on Walrus Island and St. George; tons of them. Season: June 25th to July 10th, inclusive.

Fresh-laid eggs of gulls, Laridæ: Perceptibly strong; cannot be relished unless in omelettes; yolks very dark; size and shape of our hen’s egg; shell dark, clay-colored ground, mottled. Season: June 5th to July 20th, inclusive; they are in moderate supply only. The other eggs in the list, such as those of the “choochkie,” the “shag,” and the several varieties of water-fowl which breed here, are never secured in sufficient quantity to be of any consideration as articles of diet. It is, perhaps, better that a scarcity of their kind continue, judging from the strong smack of the choochkie’s, the repulsive taint of the shag’s, and the “twang” of the sea-parrot’s, all of which I tasted as a matter of investigation.