l!he Fuligula Fusca. 34^ 



French name into the English of " Nancy Belong." To- 

 wards evening the storm abated, and although it is now 

 almost calm, tl^e sea runs high, and the Ripley rolls in a 

 way which makes our suppers rest unquietly in our 

 stomachs. We have tried in vain to get some Esquimaux 

 mocassins and robes ; and we also asked to hire one of 

 them, to act as a guide for thirty or forty miles into the 

 interior. The chief said his son might go, a boy of 

 twenty-three, but he would have to ask his mother, as she 

 was always fearing some accident to her darling. This 

 darling son looked more like a brute than a Christian 

 man, and was so daring, that he would not venture on 

 our journey. 



" We proceeded over the table-lands towards some 

 ponds, and I found three young shore-larks just out of 

 the nest, and not yet able to fly. They hopped about 

 pretty briskly over the moss, uttering a soitpeep, to which 

 the parent birds responded at every call. They were 

 about a week old, and I am glad that I shall now have 

 it in my power to make a figure of these birds in sum- 

 mer, winter, and young plumage. We also found the 

 breeding-place of the Fuligula Histrionica, in the corner 

 of a small pond in some low bushes. The parent bird 

 w^as so shy, that we could not obtain her. In another 

 pond we found the nest also of the velvet duck, called 

 here white-winged coot (Fuligula Fusca) ; it was placed 

 on the moss, among the grass, close to the edge of the 

 water, and contained feathers, but no down, as others do. 

 The female had six young, five of which were secured. 

 They were about one week old, and I could readily dis- 

 tinguish the male birds from the females, the former all 

 exhibiting the white spot under the eye. They were 

 black and hairy (not downy) all over except under the 

 chin, where a patch of white showed itself They swam 

 swiftly and beautifully, and when we drove them into a 

 15* 



