446 TRAVELS OF A NATURALIST 



mouth. Here Seebohm shot one old and one young 

 Shore Lark, and we saw an Eagle and, as before noted, 

 a good many Temminck's Stints. He went some way up 

 the river, which has steeply-sloping banks, and at low 

 tide an edging of mud. 



Feeling tired and very sleepy I went down the river 

 towards the log hut. A $ Red-breasted Merganser 

 pitched on the river close to me and within twenty 

 yards, and behaved quite as if she had eggs or young 

 in the vicinity. I fired, but she dived at the flash, and, 

 rising out of shot below me, took straight away down 

 the river. I searched a long time for the nest or young 

 on the steep, sloping bank, under logs of drift timber 

 or overhanging pieces of turf, but failed to discover it. 

 I picked up, however, a single feather which I did not 

 know, but which may prove to be one of the breast 

 feathers. 



I have now seen and identified with perfect satisfaction 

 to myself some four or five Eed-breasted Mergansers 

 during this trip, but we have been unfortunate in neither 

 securing a single specimen nor in having any eggs 

 brought to us. 



I got back to the log-hut some time before Seebohrn, 

 lay down, and almost immediately fell fast asleep. When 

 he came up we dragged the boat down to the water and 

 pushed her over the shoals. A surf was running on the 

 shore and the wind was rising, and a thick ice-fog 

 rapidly rolled over the water from the north, and in a 

 few minutes land and sea were almost lost to sight at 

 a distance of sixty or eighty yards. We crossed the 

 channel and hauled up the boat on shore, and Seebohm 

 remained to have a bathe while I went on and got dinner 

 ready. 



In the middle of the cooking Piottuch came in joyfully, 

 announcing two more nests of eggs, one which he found 



