OUR EGG LIST 141 



Grey plover ......... 14 



Dunlin .......... 7 



Great snipe ......... 4 



Lapland bunting ........ 25 



' Red-throated pipit 39 



Yellow-headed wagtail ....... 10 



Mealy redpoll 16 



Reed-bunting ......... 12 



Redwing .......... 3 



Bean-goose . . . . . . . . . . ir 



Wigeon (with down) . . . . . . . .17 



Temminck's stint ........ 4 



162 



This was a grand haul. Any little lingering feeling of 

 disappointment which we had experienced was now com- 

 pletely gone. The grey plover eggs alone would have 

 made our trip a success. They were unquestionably the 

 first that had ever been taken in Europe. We spent the 

 next two days in blowing our eggs and writing up our 

 journals, occasionally strolling out among the willows 

 on the island to bag a few yellow-headed wagtails and 

 other birds to keep Piottuch employed. We found that 

 the swans' eggs that we had brought from Kuya were 

 perfectly fresh. The eggs of the bean-goose, on the 

 contrary, some of them more than a week old, were 

 mostly considerably incubated. The ducks' eggs were 

 all fresh, or nearly so. Most of these were wigeon's, 

 pale cream-coloured eggs ; the down large, dark brown, 

 very distinctly tipped with white and with pale whitish 

 centres. The red-throated pipits and Lapland buntings' 

 eggs were, many of them, too much sat upon to be easily 

 blown, as were also the dunlins' eggs. The eggs of 

 Temminck's stint, red-necked phalarope, yellow-headed 

 wagtail, and most of the redpolls were all fresh or very 

 slightly sat upon. The eggs of the gulls, both those of 

 the common species and of the Arctic herring-gull, were 

 quite fresh, whilst some of those of the Arctic tern were 



