74 Mr. J. Wolley on the Breeding of the Smew. 



mised a friend in the South to do his best to procure them, and 

 that the only chance left for him was to get them of me — he had 

 been so many times wilfully deceived by the country people ; 

 that he now sent me the four UiniWs eggs, which had been 

 brought to him. He added, in answer to a question of mine, 

 " I think that the men who came with them, if not exactly of 

 the best-behaved sort, are at least so far to be trusted that they 

 brought the true ones. Kalle went at once to Made-koski." 

 Kalle's letter said in Finnish, " I have been to Made-koski for 

 the Uinilo^s down, but there was not much of it there. The 

 birch stump was open at the top, and who knows but the wind 

 may have carried some of the down away ? Matthias Lakso took 

 away a little from what I have sent, to see if he could make out 

 himself that it was Uinilo's. That Uinilo was caught actually 

 from the top of those eggs ; indeed it is true. * * * * I saw that 

 in that birch stump there had at some other time been eggs, for 

 there were old pieces of egg-shell. Written 29th of Harvest- 

 month (August) 1857. — Karl Leppajervi.^^ 



I was told by my man in Lapland that these four eggs had 

 been blown with only one hole, sufficiently well made, but that 

 a great part of the yolk had been left inside. They were also 

 stained outside ; but he had cleaned them out, rov;nded the holes 

 with a drill, and made a good job of them. The down sent to 

 me I found to agree generally with that on the body of the 

 female Smew ; but I did not make a careful examination, and I 

 have not yet made it. 



At the end of October 1858 I received these other four eggs. 

 I found that the character which 1 had previously observed, but 

 which I had originally seen ou only one of the first three, was 

 common to all the other four, namely that shown by the pre- 

 sence of a thin calcareous covering outside the egg-shell proper, 

 apparently of the same nature as that which is so conspicuous in 

 the egg of the common tame Swan. Some attempts had been 

 made in Sodankyla, as my man told me, to scrape this off. 



The following are the dimensions in two directions, with 

 some description, of four eggs which are now before me, picked 

 out of the six which remain in my possession out of the nest 

 of seven : — 



