706 



8 



1857. And the priest will send the four Uinilo's eggs, if you send him four eggs of Kuukili' 

 (Garrulus infaustus). 'This Uinilo was taken to the priest, and he wants for it 20 copecks.' 



"The next, or probably the first thing in the box that struck my eye, was a stiff-necked skin 

 of a female Smew, with hatching spots on its underside; then I came to five or six much- 

 injured eggs of Greenshank and other birds ; and lastly, at the bottom of all, well-wrapped in 

 tow, were the three Smew's, blown each with two holes, which I afterwards found it safe to 

 round off with a drill. The eggs rather staggered me at first sight, they were so like Wigeon's. 

 From time to time I held consultations over them. On comparing them with a series of some- 

 thing like fifty Wigeon's eggs, I found that they were pretty nearly of the same size, though 

 rather below the average. They were flattened at the small end more than any of the Wigeon's, 

 and they had less of the yellowish tinge about them, so that persons not much used to eggs 

 could pick them out of the lot ; but all these peculiarities might be accidental, though it seemed 

 remarkable that any woodsman trying to pass off Wigeon's eggs for Smew's should have been 

 able to find so abnormal a nest. But it was not very long before I satisfied myself that there 

 was a decided difference of texture. This could be perceived on an ordinary examination ; but 

 it became very striking on exposing the egg to direct sunshine and examining the penumbra, or 

 space between full light and full shadow, with a magnifying glass — the sharp ' mountainous' 

 structure of the Wigeon's egg was strongly contrasted with the lower and more rounded cha- 

 racter of the elevations in the Smew's. It is my intention to endeavour to illustrate this with 

 the help of photography. Further, I tried the sense of touch : scratching the egg with the most 

 sensitive of my finger-nails I could at once perceive the greater roughness of the Wigeon's. 

 Ludwig, though his hand was by no means of the finest, did not make a single mistake in some 

 ten trials with his eyes shut of various Wigeon's eggs and the supposed Smew's ; and one or two 

 other people were equally successful. I now felt no doubt that I had true eggs of the Smew. 

 The ivory-like texture of the Goosander's egg was a pretty parallel to the character of the 

 Smew's. 



"In the mean time, on August 4th, I sent a letter to Pastor Liljeblad, accompanied by a 

 box with four beautiful eggs of the Siberian Jay, packed as eggs should be packed, and enclosing 

 money, amongst other uses to pay for a thoroughly trustworthy man to travel to Made-koski- 

 kyla, to inquire into the particulars of the capture of the Smew and its eggs, to himself visit the 

 birch-trunk, and to bring away the down which would be lying at the bottom of the hole. I 

 also wrote to Carl Leppajervi. In a month after I wrote, I hoped an answer might arrive ; but I 

 was disappointed, and I was obliged to leave Muoniovaara for England on the 11th of September. 

 I had not been very long in England when I received a letter enclosing communications from 

 Pastor Liljeblad and from Carl Leppajervi, which had arrived at Muoniovaara on the 16th of 

 September, and also enclosing a specimen of the down, which my agent had picked out of the 

 heap of touch-wood sent with the letters from Sodankyla. 



" The priest told me in Swedish that he had asked me for the eggs of the Siberian Jay, only 

 because he had for many years promised a friend in the south to do his best to procure them, 

 and that the only chance left for him was to get them of me — he had been so many times 

 wilfully deceived by the country people, — that he now sent me the four Uinilo's eggs, which had 

 been brought to him. He added, in answer to a question of mine, ' I think that the men who 



