MERGUS ALBELLUS. 62] 
eating to a resident trader, who had asked him where he had got 
Hens’ eggs. Now Hens’ eggs are unknown in the interior of the 
country, where I was; but at Uleaborg, where the trader had been 
familiar with them, they are about of the size of our Bantam’s eggs. 
This gave me the best indication I had yet met with of the probable 
appearance of the egg, and I told my servant-lad Ludwig in con- 
fidence that, when we at length should get Ungilo’s eggs, they would 
be very like Wigeon’s, though probably more white. Of course this 
was not to be talked of, as it might lead to attempts at imposition. 
It is possible that the small comparative size of the Ungilo’s eggs, 
and the habit of the bird turning out the Golden Eye, had made it 
little liked by the people, and that they used to catch it on its eggs 
and kill it, as they do Hawk-Owls and Tengmalm’s Owls. 
However that may be, year after year passed by, and I never once, 
out of the tens of thousands of duck-like birds that came under my 
notice, caught sight of aSmew. In time I came to hear from people 
who came from the Sodankyla district, a good way to the east of 
Muonioniska, that Uinilo, as it was there called, bred at more than 
one lake in that neighbourhood. In 1856 I sent a very clever Lap, 
Martin Pekka, to this quarter for the egg-season, but he could not 
meet with Uinilo. 
In 1857 the clergyman of Muonioniska, Priest Liljeblad, had been 
transferred to Sodankyla; and in the spring of this year, an intelligent 
young man, Carl Leppajervi, went from Muonioniska to be assistant- 
schoolmaster with his former teacher. I gave Carl strict charge to 
make every inquiry for Uznilo in that part of the world and of 
travellers from Kemi Trask. One day (the 30th July 1857), as I 
passed by the homestead of Regina’s Calle, the famous steerer of the 
Muonio Falls, there was given to me a wooden box, such as is used 
in the country for carrying butter on a journey, addressed ‘To the 
English gentleman Joh Woleg in Muoniovaara.”” This box was not 
tied nor secured in any way; and on the lid being opened there first 
appeared a well-written Finnish letter, of parts of which the follow- 
ing is an exact translation :— 
‘Matthias Lakso of Made-koski-kyla, on the Kitinen-joki, five 
miles (Swedish) from Sodankyla, has found on the Liesi-joki eggs of 
Uinilo, and has brought to me three eggs, on which is written a 
number like this.” [Here follows a facsimile of the figure 1 on 
the eggs. It appears from Hermelin’s map that the Kitinen-joki, of 
which the Liesi is doubtless a tributary, runs into the Kemi-joki a 
