18 EARLY LIFE 



back two or three barrels of eggs in one trip. Al- 

 though we collected all kinds indiscriminately, 

 those most sought after and preferred were the 

 puffins' and eiders' eggs. The puffins' nests were 

 easy to find, as they are merely burrows, two or 

 three feet long in the soft soil or guano. Only 

 one egg was laid in each burrow. The eiders' 

 nests were more difficult to find, being built in the 

 thick scrub or dense patches of black spruces of 

 stunted growth, with long branches right down 

 to the ground. They seldom built on the out- 

 skirts, but had little runways resembling those 

 of the rabbit, leading to the nest, twenty-five or 

 thirty yards further. When alarmed they never 

 took flight from the nest, but they would run 

 along those paths till they reached open ground. 

 They lie very close, and by crawling along cau- 

 tiously, I frequently caught them with my hands 

 just as they would attempt to leave the nest. 

 From five to seven fine large eggs was the average 

 number to each nest, but in some few cases there 

 were more ; ten is the largest number I ever 

 found. I was very successful in this kind of 

 sport, as owing to my small size I could crawl 

 about with ease in the thick underbrush. When 

 we tired of this egg collecting, we would go and 

 have a shoot. All we had to do was to sit quiet 

 on the end of a point of rocks near the seashore 

 and the birds would fly past us and over us in 

 hundreds. If we wanted pot shots it was also 



