CHAP. xvii. NESTS. 205 



men trying to watch one of these birds on to the nest. We 

 lay down, one fifty yards to his right, and the other as much 

 to his left. The birds behaved exactly as those we watched 

 the day before. After the female had crossed and recrossed 

 one, hillock many times, and finally disappeared behind it, 

 I made up my mind that the nest was there, and rose. My 

 sudden appearance alarmed the male, who flew up, showing 

 his black axillaries very distinctly in the evening sunshine 

 as he skimmed over my head. We then all three rose, and 

 in less than a minute met at the nest, which contained three 

 eggs. I sat down to pack the eggs ; and Harvie-Brown 

 followed the male, who came up as we found the nest. 

 Whilst I was packing the eggs and warming my hands, 

 and talking " pigeon-Euss " with the man, the female came 

 within range, and I took up my gun and shot her, thereby 

 completing the identification of the eggs. On our return 

 home we found that Cocksure had sent word to us that the 

 swan had not revisited her nest as yet, and begged one of 

 us to go to relieve guard. My companion accordingly, 

 after a substantial meal, set off at midnight ; meanwhile 

 the men we paid to help us brought in the results of their 

 day's work : a red-throated diver, trapped on the nest, with 

 two eggs ; half-a-dozen phalaropes' eggs, a duck's nest, con- 

 taining seven large olive-grey eggs, and down, almost black. 

 These, they assured us, were the eggs of the lolshaya tchornaya 

 oofka (the great black duck). We recognised them, however, 

 to be the same as those our Samoyede had brought home on 

 the 2nd, and on which he had shot a female scaup. The 

 down tallied exactly with that he had then brought home, 



