MERGUS ALBELLUS. 623 
structure of the Wigeon’s egg was strongly contrasted with the 
lower and more rounded character of the elevations in the Smew’s. 
It is my intention to endeavour to illustrate this with the help of 
photography. Further, I tried the sense of touch: scratching the 
egg with the most sensitive of my finger-nails I could at once perceive 
the greater roughness of the Wigeon’s. Ludwig, though his hand 
was by no means of the finest, did not make a single mistake in some 
ten trials with his eyes shut of various Wigeon’s eggs and the sup- 
posed Smew’s, and one or two other people were equally successful. 
I now felt no doubt that I had true eggs of the Smew. The ivory- 
like texture of the Goosander’s egg was a pretty parallel to the 
character of the Smew’s. 
In the meantime, on August 4th, I sent a letter to Pastor Lilje- 
blad, accompanied by a box with four beautiful eggs of the Siberian 
Jay, packed as eggs should be packed, and enclosing money, amongst 
other uses to pay for a thoroughly trustworthy man to travel to 
Made-koski-kyla, to inquire into the particulars of the capture of 
the Smew and its eggs, to himself visit the birch trunk, and to bring 
away the down which would be lying at the bottom of the hole. I 
also wrote to Carl Leppajervi. In a month after I wrote, I hoped 
an answer might arrive; but I was disappointed, and I was obliged 
to leave Muoniovaara for England on the 11th of September. I had 
not been very long in England when I received a letter enclosing 
communications from Pastor Liljeblad and from Carl Leppajervi, 
which had arrived at Muoniovaara on the 16th of September, and 
also enclosing a specimen of the down, which my agent [Knoblock 
senior] had picked out of the heap of touch-wood sent with the letters 
from Sodankyla. 
The priest told me in Swedish that he had asked me for the eggs 
of the Siberian Jay, only because he had for many years promised 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 Uinilo’s 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 [Karl] 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 
