Ramble in Lapland. 175 



visited to day. Although we now had fine summer weather, 

 there was not a sign of greenness in a single tree or plant as 

 yet, and many deep ridges of snow looked as if ihey were 

 never going to melt. A single Swallow arrived at Pulmak 

 in the evening. 



June 19th. House-Martins {Chelidon urhica) arrived and 

 sought the eaves of our dwelling for a breeding-place. After 

 breakfast I shot the female Wigeon as she rose from her 

 nest close to the house : the one egg was laid on the dead 

 leaves under a willow bush, with scarcely a sign of a nest. 

 This was the Duck whose two husbands I had already 

 secured, and now she fell herself ! She had a pretty 

 brindled head, grey and black, the wing and tail-coverts 

 mottled white all over, the flanks were brown. 



June 20tli. A little Lap boy brought me this morning, in 

 a tin tray, the nest, cut out of the ground, containing three 

 eggs, of the Dotterel {Eudromias mori/ieZ/Ms), the first indica- 

 tion I had of this bird^s presence near Pulmak. To-day 

 Trinus and I packed up our tent and hired two Lap boys 

 to " pole " us up the Pulmakelf as far as Pulmak Vand, a 

 lake some seven miles long and two miles wide, about 

 eight miles from Pulmak and about forty miles north of 

 the great Lake Enare. We had intended pitching our 

 tent near a Russian Finn^s hut at the south end of the lake, 

 but we were rather amazed to find, on emerging from the 

 high banks of the Pulmak river, that the whole surface of the 

 lake was still frozen, and that the mountains on the Russian 

 side were deep in snow. We accordingly pitched our tent in 

 the birch-forest near the frozen lake, and when the two Laps 

 had roasted us some salmon-steaks with the aid of a birch 

 fire, they returned to Pulmak, and we were left alone in the 

 solitudes of the forest. Close to our home was the boundary 

 line between Norwegian Lapland and Russian Finland ; this 

 line is kept distinct through the birch-forests by means of 

 cutting down all the trees for a width of several yards, and 

 over the bare fells by large cairns of stones set on the tops 

 of conspicuous fell-summits. 



When strolling along a pathway in the forest in the after- 



