705 



different districts. Even this very name Ungilo is used for the Goosander in certain places on 

 the Upper Tornea river. 



" Concerning the egg of Ungilo I made every inquiry. All the people who remembered it 

 on the Muonio agreed that it was much less than the Golden-eye's, and was liable to be found 

 in the same hole with eggs of that bird. As a consequence of this popular belief, I often had 

 dwarf eggs of Sotka brought to me for Ungilo's. From one trustworthy man, Piko Haki, I 

 heard that some ten years before he had found a nest and taken the eggs on sale for eating to a 

 resident trader, who had asked him where he had got Hens' eggs. Now Hens' eggs are 

 unknown in the interior of the country, where I was ; but at Uleaborg, where the trader had 

 been familiar with them, they are about the size of our Bantam's eggs. This gave me the best 

 indication I had yet met with of the probable appearance of the egg ; and I told my servant-lad 

 Ludwig in confidence that, when we at length should get Ungilo's eggs, they would be very like 

 Wigeon's, though probably more white. Of course this was not to be talked of, as it might lead 

 to attempts at imposition. It is possible that the small comparative size of the Ungilo's eggs, 

 and the habit of the bird turning out the Golden-eye, had made it little liked by the people, 

 and that they used to catch it on the eggs and kill it, as they do Hawk Owls and Tengmalm's 

 Owls. 



" However that may be, year after year passed by, and I never once, out of the tens of 

 thousands of duck-like birds that came under my notice, caught sight of a Smew. In time I 

 came to hear from people who came from the Sodankyla district, a good way to the east of 

 Muonioniska, that Uinilo, as it was there called, bred at more than one lake in that neighbour- 

 hood. In 1856 I sent a very clever Lap, Martin Pekka, to this quarter for the egg-season; but 

 he could not meet with Uinilo. 



"In 1857 the clergyman of Muonioniska, Priest Liljeblad, had been transferred to Sodan- 

 kyla; and in the spring of this year an intelligent young man, Carl Leppajervi, went from 

 Muonioniska to be assistant schoolmaster with his former teacher. I gave Carl strict charge to 

 make every inquiry for Uinilo in that part of the world and of travellers from Kemi Trask. 

 One day (the 30th July 1857), as I passed by the homestead of Regina's Calle, the famous 

 steerer of the Muonio Falls, there was given to me a wooden box, such as is used in the country 

 for carrying butter on a journey, addressed 'To the English gentleman Joh Woleg in Muonio- 

 vaara.' The box was not tied nor secured in any way ; and on the lid being opened, there first 

 appeared a well- written Finnish letter, of parts of which the following is an exact translation: — 



'"Matthias Lasko of Made-koski-kyla, on the Kitinen-joki, five miles [Swedish] from 

 Sodankyla, has found on the Liesi-joki eggs of Uinilo, and has brought to me three eggs, on 

 which is written a number like this.' [Here follows a facsimile of the figure 1 on the eggs. It 

 appears from Hermelin's map, that the Kitinen-joki, of which the Liesi is doubtless a tributary, 

 runs into the Kemi-joki a little north of Sodankyla.] 'They were found on the 8th day of the 

 summer-month [June] 1857. Of an old birch trunk the wood was rotted away, and it was left 

 hollow, forming a hole in which they were.' [The expression used involves the idea of the trunk 

 being still standing.] ' There were two men in company ; and the other man has given four eggs 



to the priest : there were seven of them ; but there was no down brought The Uinilo was 



also killed ; and with the eggs it too is sent. — Carl Leppajervi. First day of the Hay-month [July] 



