624 MERGUS ALBELLUS. 
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 out- 
side ; but he had cleaned them out, rounded 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 J have not yet made it. 
At the end of October 1858 I received these other four eggs. I 
found that the character which I had previously observed, but which 
I had originally seen on only one of the first three, was common to 
all the other four, namely that shown by the presence 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 :— 
Greatest length. Greatest breadth. 
Istegg . . . 2-04 inches. 1°52 inch. 
end eee 4 =< OD, 1s; 1:47 oe, 
prd.epr =. ee, 143 ,, 
Athege . .,., 204) 4, IL 
Of the first egg, the widest part is exactly halfway down; but in 
one direction the inferior fulness of the curve points out which is 
the small end of the egg; though, were there cut out of the middle 
of each end a piece of the sheil bounded by a circle of a quarter of 
an inch in radius, I think, as the pieces lay upon a level surface, the 
piece from the small end of the egg would be found less elevated 
than the other piece. In other words, the small end of the egg is 
even more flattened than the large end, though the flattened area 
there is not so extensive as that of the large end. 
Of the second egg, the conjugate diameter is nearer to the large 
end than it is to the small end, the proportion of the distances being 
