CHAP, xviii. % VELVET SCOTER. 211 



tection : had it not grown cooler on the hills, as the sun got 

 low, he would certainly have fallen into a regular mosquito- 

 fever. We were told that this pest of mosquitoes was nothing 

 as yet to what it would become later. " Wait a while," said 

 our Job's comforter, " and you will not be able to see each 

 other at twenty paces distance; you will not be able to 

 aim with your gun, for the moment you raise your barrel 



, : -:^sfcW_ 



WATCHING GREY PLOVERS THROUGH A CLOUD OF MOSQUITOES. 



half-a-dozen regiments of mosquitoes will rise between you 

 and the sight." When the coolness of evening set in we 

 had pretty good shooting for an hour or two ; but after nine 

 or ten o'clock we found nothing. There is very little to be 

 met on the tundra or anywhere else at midnight, for in spite 

 of brilliant sunshine, the birds retire to roost at the proper 

 time and all is hushed. Our best find was the nest of a 

 velvet scoter.* We shot the female as she rose from it ; there 



* The velvet scoter (ffidemia fusca, I eastern hemisphere, though it is re- 

 Linn.) appears to be confined to the | placed in North America by a form so 



