chap. xxr. NORTH TWIN CATE. 271 



set and rise again in the space of an hour or so ; then we set 

 off, hoping to get the start of the mosquitoes. It was a dead 

 calm, and taking the boat, we crossed over to the north 

 twin cape. We found the sand barren of special interest, as 

 it had been on the other side, only the intrusive ringed plover 

 made as much hubbub as a hundred little stints or grey 

 plovers would have done, evidently considering its eggs 

 were the only ones we could possibly be in search of. The 

 lakes and pools were very similar in shape and appearance 

 to those on the south cape. Temminck's stint were some- 

 what more abundant, and we fell in with one small party of 

 little stints. Before leaving this ground we devoted an 

 hour to duck-shooting for the pot, and bagged three long- 

 tailed ducks, and one pintail duck with two young in 

 down. We then turned our attention to the tundra, which 

 rapidly rose some forty feet or so, afterwards sloping 

 gradually down apparently to the Pytkoff hills, distant some 

 fifteen miles. In many places a white mist lay over the land- 

 scape, resembling far away lakes. There were abundance 

 of small pools of water, but we could not distinguish them 

 until within a short distance. In suitable ground the grey 

 plover abounded, and we shot young Lapland buntings ; yet 

 on the whole the tundra did not look inviting — grey plovers 

 and their eggs were not sufficient attraction to lure us to 

 face the mosquitoes ; so turning aw r ay from it we began to 

 explore the shores of a river winding inland. On its high 

 steep grassy banks we found shore-larks, old and young, and 

 what was even more to the purpose and acceptable in our 

 present Eobinson Crusoe situation, was an abundance of 



