222 IN CAMP AT DVOINIK 



evening. A never-setting sun plays strange pranks with 

 one's reckoning of time. 



Harvie- Brown had worked the Little stint ground, 

 but had not seen a bird upon it. While with me, he shot 

 a brace of grey plovers ; then we parted, and I returned 

 to the Little stint feeding haunts. I secured a brace of 

 them, a few dunlins, old and young, and a grey plover ; 

 also some young Temminck's stints half-way between 

 feathers and down. As I was picking up the latter I 

 discerned in the distance the form of a great white bird, 

 which seemed to me to alight upon a distant lake. 

 Taking it to be a Bewick's swan, I put a slug-cartridge 

 into my gun and walked rapidly on in its direction. 

 Before I got within shot of it the bird rose, and I saw a 

 snowy owl drop behind the sand-hills. I carefully stalked 

 it, looked around, and after a time descried a white spot 

 resting on the north twin cape, which, with the aid of my 

 telescope, I discovered to be the owl. He, too, must 

 have been watching me ; perhaps he took my sealskin 

 cap for some new species of lemming, for presently he 

 rose and flew across the water directly towards me. By 

 the time he had reached the other twin cape he evidently 

 discovered his mistake, and alighted on the beach about 

 sixty yards in front of me. I rose and walked towards 

 him ; he also rose, but before he had flown ten yards my 

 shot reached him, broke one of his wings, and dropped 

 him into the sea. As he lay struggling in the water a 

 score of glaucous and herring-gulls came flying towards 

 him, and sailed round arid round him, making quite a 

 small uproar with their cries. I was too anxious, how- 

 ever, to secure my first snowy owl to pay any heed to 

 them, especially as my cartridge extractor had got out of 

 order ; I therefore plunged into the water, and, as it was 

 shallow, I soon landed my prize. 



