FETCH OR A 455 



properties, but they seem to eat it with relish too 

 (especially Bolshai Feodor). 



In the morning we had a good deal of rain, accom- 

 panied by high wind, which latter continued all day and 

 increased to a gale at night. The wind blew straight 

 from the north and from the Arctic ice, and was bitterly 

 cold. Our Crusoe dwelling proves far from water-tight, 

 and being damp also we feel the cold more. 



In the afternoon Seebohm and I went out, he pre- 

 ceding me by about an hour and a half under the impres- 

 sion that he had had a good night's rest, and when I met 

 him afterwards on the tundra he saluted me with ' Good 

 morning ! ' Further, being a good hand at an argument, 

 he nearly persuaded me that he was right. We feel quite 

 puzzled as to whether it was yesterday or to-morrow, and 

 even began to doubt whether it might not possibly be 

 the day after ! 



He had carefully and perseveringly hunted the Old 

 Stint ground in vain, and, after finishing it, was sur- 

 prised when a couple of Buffon's Skuas passed over to 

 see some twenty birds (of sorts) flushed from the same 

 ground he had just worked. 



He then went on to where the fifth nest (third nest of 

 eggs) were found by Piottuch, but saw none there either. 



Coming later, I also beat up the former ground, care- 

 fully following the lines of the deep trenches I have 

 before mentioned, and missing as little ground as I 

 could. 



At a place where we had before seen a Little Stint 

 apparently stumble off its nest (which we had failed, 

 however, to find, and had marked by overturning a 

 couple of sods) I saw what for a second or two I took 

 for a Little Stint. It was within a yard or two of the 

 pieces of turf. I soon saw what he was, however, and 

 shot it, only a young half-grown Dunlin. 



VOL. ii. 31 



