THE UNCHARTED SKY 137 



night; in the tundra, they swarm incessantly for 

 six weeks or more. 



"They make the land intolerable to man, and 

 uninhabitable, but the soft-billed, insect-eating 

 birds have only to open their mouths to fill them 

 with mosquitoes. No wonder, then, that they, as 

 well as the fruit-eating birds, descend upon the 

 country in myriads. For them the land is a para- 

 dise.' " 



"I'll stay away from there," said Shan, emphat- 

 ically; "there are too many mosquitoes for me, 

 even 'round here. ' ' 



"Which bird, do yo' reckon, goes the farthest?" 

 queried Bull. 



"Cooke, one of our men on the Biological Sur- 

 vey," the expert answered, "calls the Arctic Tern 

 the world's migration champion. It deserves its 

 title of Arctic, for it nests as far north as land 

 has been discovered; that is, as far north as the 

 bird can find anything stable on which to construct 

 its nest. Indeed, so arctic are the conditions 

 under which it breeds that the first nest found by 

 Man in this region, less than eight degrees from 

 the Pole, contained a downy chick surrounded by 

 a wall of newly fallen snow, that had been scooped 

 out of the nest by the parent. When the young are 



