142 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



being left with them. They were not so numerous, indeed, 

 but that was all. Where we landed — and difficult enough it was 

 to get the deep-keeled, small boat, that kept filling with water, 

 in amongst the angular, unaccommodating rocks and stones, 

 quite different from sea-rocks — was only a little beyond the 

 eyrie, which is in the face of the line of low cliffs that crowns 

 the steep shores of the lake, and, before we were out, the birds 

 had sailed up, but with so calm, unimpassioned a demeanour as 

 gave me small hopes concerning them. However, we got up the 

 tent and, for three or four hours, kept quiet within it, the 

 Mosquitoes, all the while, swarming in at the doorway, which, to 

 observe, we had to keep open, to an extent which, however minor 

 to what it was on the opposite side, soon made them, and not 

 the birds, the principal objects of interest, and would have done, 

 even though there had been young in the nest, and the parents 

 constantly feeding them. But though we heard the Eagles more 

 than once, they never came to the ledge, and by 6 o'clock I felt 

 pretty sure that there would be nothing to see if I stayed, and, 

 also, that to stay, under such circumstances, would be almost 

 impossible — unhappily for me it was not quite. So the tent was 

 taken down and the boat loaded up again, but what with the 

 annoyance at having to give up seeing what I had so much 

 hoped to see, and the fear of being possibly mistaken in my 

 conclusion, aided by a temporary lull, for some reason, in the 

 exasperating plague, which made me think it might be better, 

 altogether, on the beach, the upshot was that my yearning 

 wishes got the better of my reasoning powers, and I decided, at 

 the last moment, to stay — at first till the following morning, and 

 then, as the Gods made me madder, and madder, till the morning 

 after that. 



So up the tent was put again, on the actual shingle, just a 

 step or two beyond the water, but, almost before the boat was 

 out of sight, it became apparent that my hopes, in regard to 

 the Mosquitoes, were fallacious, and after an effort of endurance, 

 which was unfortunately too long, I came to the now fixed con- 

 clusion that to stay, under such conditions, was madness, and 

 to get back the only sane thing to do. There might, I thought, 

 be just time to reach the point opposite to where Sigurdsson 

 would now have landed, before he started back with the ponies, 



