630 MERGUS MERGANSER. 
of Muotkajiirvi Elias (an honest man)—on the 10th of June. She 
said she had taken them from a ¢ylla so Jong before, that she could 
not remember exactly when. She was afraid they would be spoilt 
by keeping, so she blew them out at the ends, as she had been 
recommended to do by the Pulojoki pecple. The time of year is in 
favour of the eggs being Goosander’s, and Ludwig has no doubt the 
girl spoke the truth when she said she took them from a ¢ylla. 
§ 5878. Five-—Warsnis, Kalmar Lan, 29 Apmil, 1856. 
cc J \ 33 
Four eggs taken and brought down by myself this day out of the 
cld.oak in which they were laid. There were nine eggs, of which 
Mr. Simpson [Hudleston] has five. A peasant, living on the neck 
of the promontory which is four or five miles north of Kalmar, went 
with us to look for nests, and he climbed up into many fine old oaks, 
where he had known the bird to breed in previous years. At last, 
as we were looking up at a large tree, two birds flew over which I 
did not see distinctly, but which I took to be Goosanders, though 
the man said they were And {Wild Duck], Skracka being the name 
for Goosander. Mr. Simpson, who saw them better than I did, is 
sure that they were larger than Wild Ducks, and that the breast of . 
the male was altogether white. We saw a bit of down at the top of 
the tree, where it had been broken off, and the man said there should 
be eggs. Mr. Simpson climbed up first, and there, sure enough, he 
called out breathlessly, were eggs. He held one up, but at the 
distance both the man and I thought it was a Wild Duck’s. The 
man climbed up to help bring them down, and I followed him to see 
them in situ. They lay, among pure white down, mixed with white 
feathers, and brown fragments of decayed oak and oak-leaves, at the 
bottom of the hollow top of the tree, not more than two feet deep, 
and exposed to the weather. A large lump of the decayed wood fell 
upon them without breaking any. I brought down in my cap the 
four I have kept. The man brought down four and Mr. Simpson 
one. That they were Skracka our guide now considered perfectly 
certain. Most of them were stained by the decayed fragments of 
wood. 
This same day we saw some Wild Ducks’ eggs that had been taken 
in a marsh and sucked by children, also a colony of Fieldfares, with 
a nearly finished nest. Two days ago we saw a half-finished 
Chaffinch’s at Kalmar—Wood anemone, Gagea lutea and Hepatica 
