THE ARCTIC MIST 215 



somewhat more abundant, and we fell in with one small 

 party of Little stints. Before leaving this ground we 

 devoted an hour to duck-shooting for the pot, and 

 bagged three long-tailed ducks, and one pintail with 

 two young in down. We then turned our attention 

 to the tundra, which rapidly rose some forty feet or 

 so, afterwards sloping gradually down apparently to 

 the Pytkoff hills, distant some fifteen miles. In many 

 places a white mist lay over the landscape, resembling 

 far-away lakes. There were numerous small pools of 

 water, but we could not distinguish them until within 

 a short distance. In suitable ground the grey plover 

 abounded, and we shot young Lapland buntings ; yet 

 on the whole the tundra did not look inviting grey 

 plovers and their eggs were not sufficient attraction to 

 lure us to face the mosquitoes ; so turning away from 

 it we began to explore the shores of a river winding 

 inland. On its high steep grassy banks we found shore- 

 larks, old and young, and what was even more to the 

 purpose and acceptable in our present Robinson Crusoe 

 situation an abundance of leeks or eschalots, of which 

 we laid in a plentiful supply. We recognised an eagle 

 soaring overhead, we saw some skuas, ringed plovers, 

 Temminck's stints, and redpolls, but nothing of special 

 interest. It was now about eight o'clock, so we rowed 

 back to the entrance of the inland sea, intending to 

 cross over to our quarters on the south cape, when 

 suddenly a dense white mist, coming from the Arctic 

 ice, fell upon us. We hastened to run our -boat ashore, 

 stopping to shoot a sanderling on a sandbank, and soon 

 after an Arctic tern. 



Our next nest of the Little stint was taken on the 

 24th of July. Harvie- Brown and I had^been up all 

 night, shooting by the light of the midnight^ sun, hoping 



