FETCH OR A 439 



became a little shyer, but still flew round us in circles, 

 alighting here and there, but did not again approach so 

 near as before. 



I soon now, at Seebohm's suggestion, shot the bird, 

 and we proceeded to search for another nest or young, 

 offering Simeon two roubles if he found a nest of eggs. 



Piottuch and I ran forward, he being a Httle in 

 advance, and in a trice we had three more young, a little 

 older than the first ones. 



Within fifteen yards of where we got these three young 

 a bird rose, and we again ran forward. 



' Hurrah ! Monsieur, les CBufs, les oeufs.' And the 

 next instant we were sitting one on each side of the nest, 

 the birds of both eggs and young flying round us or 

 alighting within twenty paces, neither of them so tame 

 and fearless as the parent of the first nest of young. 



And the eggs'? Miniature Dunlins, three dark and 

 richly marked, and the fourth light and much more 

 faintly streaked, but also just like one Dunlm's egg in our 

 collection at home, taken in South Uist. 



And the nest ? Bather untidy, rather rough and 

 uneven round its rim, very shallow, sparingly lined with 

 dry grasses and a little leaf or two, which may have been 

 plucked by the bird as she sat in her nest. Eound it, 

 deep, spongy, but not wet, yellow moss, * the dark green 

 leaves and empty calices of the Arctic Bramble,! a tuft of 

 round-stemmed green sedge with seed ; I a little further 

 off, the now flowerless plants of the sweet-scented dwarf 

 rhododendron, II and bunches and patches of long white 

 grass and plants of a small cotton-grass, § and other 

 plants and grasses, of which we shall bring home speci- 

 mens for identification. 



* Sjiliagnum? f Riihus arciicus. 



I Carex rarlflora. j; Sedum xxdustre. 



j Eriopliorum vaginalum and E. polystacliijon, var. latifolium. 



