INSCHAROKCAMP 203 



had tied my handkerchief to it, I had marked the site of 

 a nest. 



When I had pressed the flowers this evening I sat for 

 very long watching the red-throated divers, of which 

 many drop into the creek below the tent when the tide is 

 at half-ebb. 



They were only taking one kind of fish, the Arctic 

 flounder, which the Russians call ' kambola.' These 

 they caught very rapidly and never missed. The fish 

 are not swallowed until they have been worried well. 

 I never saw one diver try to rob another as ducks will ; 

 there was enough for all, and mutual respect. 



I, too, had designs upon these flat fish, none of which 

 were to be realised. It was not a little trying to see these 

 birds oobblinor down with so much satisfaction a kind of 

 food which would have exactly suited us. But tired as 

 we had become of eternal long-tailed duck, I could con- 

 trive no way for varying it. Had we but been possessed 

 of our dredge, or even fish-hooks, I doubt not we should 

 soon have filled the pot. But these appliances were upon 

 the yacht ; and though I schemed a method for taking 

 flounders with a bent pin and a bit of string, I found 

 that, without a boat, or at least without a fishing-rod to 

 reach over to the deeper parts, the deep black mud of 

 the creek was too great an obstacle. Had we really 

 been pushed to a necessity I of course could have 

 ventured on mud-pattens made of drift-wood, but we 

 were not yet in that case. Another time I should, I 



