FETCH OR A ' 461 



a Falcon. They bore them off to the tundra, and settled 

 to their repast on the tops of the hummocks. 



About four hundred yards further along the shore, and 

 on the grassy dwarf willow-covered meadow between the 

 sharply-defined tundra proper, and the equally well-defined 

 basin of the inlet, I found a second nest, also with four 

 eggs, watching the bird fly up from the mud and alight, 

 flushing her, and watching her again to the nest. 



This time the nest was on the top of an isolated clump 

 of Spliagnum, through which were growing a few twigs 

 of dwarf -willow. 



In every respect the habits of the bird were the same 

 as of those at the other nests, save that the presence of 

 the dog seemed to cause her more alarm and made her 

 shyer of approaching. She once shammed broken wing, 

 and once flew away to the mud flat, but in fifteen minutes 

 at the outside I marked her on to the nest. I shot her, 

 packed the eggs, but left the nest as we have now plenty 

 of the latter, and continued for a verst or so along the 

 likely-looking ground without seeing another Little 

 Stint. 



I shot two Eed-necked Phalaropes on a little pool on 

 the Stint-ground, and then returned to the wreck, where 

 I found Seebohm busy at work preparing the breast of the 

 Swan for dinner, baking it in clay under a roaring wood 

 fire on the beach. It proved to be far from unpalatable, 

 aided by stewed prunes and ' tschai ' ; ' better in fact 

 than it was bonny,' for it came out as 'black as black.' 



In the afternoon Seebohm went across to the opposite 

 side in the boat, and had a hard pull to get across. He 

 went up the left bank of the piece of water which we 

 took for a river, but which the men now tell us is an 

 inlet of the sea, and crossed down to the side of the inlet. 



He saw about two hundred Wild (Bean) Geese, old and 

 young, en marche for their quarters in the interior of 



