382 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



was to be seen, and though we devoted a good time to the search 

 we could not again find them. Further up the bay we landed for 

 a Eeindeer hunt up a valley running at right angles to the long 

 axis of the bay. We walked a good way inland, but saw no deer, 

 nor did we even find any receut traces of them. On a gentle 

 slope, which was pretty well covered with various plants, and 

 some distance from the coast, we found four little Purple Sand- 

 pipers, hatched, I imagine, within the last three or four days. 

 Chapman and I gave chase and soon captured one each, which we 

 examined and then set at liberty again. We turned eastwards, 

 and returned to the coast by the next valley to the one we had 

 gone inland by, on the way collecting some fossils and round ball- 

 like nodules of iron-pyrites (?). Hereabouts also one of our 

 boat's crew began collecting scurvy-grass (Cochlearia), which 

 the Norwegian walrus-hunters call " Sur-graes " — a name un- 

 known to the dictionary. The supply being plentiful, it afforded 

 an excellent salad with our al fresco dinner. At the place where 

 we landed for Reindeer, from one to two hundred yards inland, we 

 found a pair of Arctic Skuas, which had a nest hatched out ; after 

 a search 1 found one of the egg-shells, but we did not succeed in 

 finding the young birds. The performance gone through by the 

 old birds was most amusing and pretty, being the best bit of 

 acting by old birds, in drawing one away from their young, that 

 I have seen. The usual business — broken wing, broken leg, 

 broken everything— were all enacted in turn, in the intervals 

 flying close round us, with a cry just like the bark of a somewhat 

 wheezy toy-terrier ; then down they would go on the ground again, 

 close by us, and every variety and state of helplessness would be 

 again acted to the life. Nordenskiold refers to the acting powers 

 of this species in the 'Voyage of the Vega' (vol. i., p. 122), and 

 Saxby, in his 'Birds of Shetland' (p. 857), describes it. With 

 regard to the foot-note by the Editor of the latter work (p. 356), 

 to the effect that the local name for this species, to be spelt 

 "bosun," was a " term used in Norway," I suspect that his friend 

 who told him so had simply heard it used by a seaman who had 

 learnt English. The regular Norwegian name for this bird, and 

 the only one I have heard used,* is " Tyvjo": Swedish, " Tjufjo" 



* The dictionary gives " Kjove" and " Strand-hog," but I have not heard 

 either of these names used in Norway, aud they are very possibly restricted 

 to Denmark. 



