AT STANAVIALACHTA 145 



son's skua, which heedlessly flew within range of my 

 gun. This was the first example of this species which 

 we had yet seen. It was as white underneath as the 

 Buffon's skuas, but the centre tail-feathers were much 

 shorter. Curiously enough we never met with the dark- 

 bellied variety of Richardson's skua in the Petchora. It 

 must be the western form. I found it by far the 

 commonest variety in Finmark. We saw a few Arctic 

 terns, and got one egg. On the lakes the long-tailed 

 duck was common, and I shot two males. These birds 

 are very quarrelsome, and by no means so shy as the 

 other ducks. My companion identified a red-breasted 

 merganser, but did not succeed in shooting it. I saw a 

 great snipe, a large flock of red-necked phalaropes, a few 

 pairs of fieldfares, and several black-throated divers. 

 Every day the tundra became gayer with flowers, and we 

 continually regretted that we were not botanists. I 

 noticed Equisetum variegatum for the first time. The 

 evening, or what ought to have been the evening, turned 

 out so cold, with a strong contrary wind, against which 

 our stupid keelless boat could make little headway, that 

 finding the tide was also against us, we cast anchor in a 

 creek for a night's rest. In the morning, by dint of hard 

 rowing for some time, then of thrusting with a pole, as is 

 done in the flat-bottomed boats on the Grecian lagoons, 

 then turning out two of our men, and making them drag 

 us along, canal-boat fashion, we at length arrived at 

 Stanavialachta. We spent the day in making the 

 Company's deserted houses sufficiently waterproof to 

 afford us good shelter for a few days. In the evening we 

 turned out for a stroll ; the tundra in this locality was 

 much more hilly, and was diversified with more lakes 

 than in the neighhourhood of Alexievka. The high 

 ground was very dry, and we seldom came upon any 



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