RE-CROSSING 153 



all, crowded in my little tent (seven feet by seven), 

 where we made the evening go very merrily ; for I gave 

 them a little whisky apiece, and lent them a tobacco 

 pipe, which went the round, though Onaska would not 

 smoke at all, so Uano had a double share. 



Then I brought out a large coloured sheet of Scandi- 

 navian birds, and also my bird-book, at which they dis- 

 played the greatest interest. They told me which were 

 Kolguev birds, and which were not, and gave me all the 

 native names, which will come in later in this book. 



They were most intelligent about it, and had grand 

 arguments over certain cases. I was quite surprised 

 at their accuracy and skill, and almost everything I 

 doubted at the time I afterwards found borne out by- 

 facts. 



They said that the snowy owl nested not on Kolguev, 

 though it crossed over the sea in the summer ; that the 

 ivory gull was common there in the winter, with many 

 facts of that kind. Only they all insisted that the 

 swallow was a bird of their island, but I feel sure they 

 took it for a skua. They would give it a name, and 

 then imitate exactly the call of the bird, to show that 

 the name was only what it said itself. 



One instance struck me much. The Samoyed name 

 for snowy owl is ' hei-nib-chur.' But ' heinibchur ' is 

 also their name for sneeze and snuff, and when I found 

 out later that the Russians call this owl ' Sowah,' i.e. 

 snuff, I saw that it had reference to the bird's habits 



