707 



9 



came with them, if not exactly of the best-behaved sort, are at least so far to be trusted that 

 they brought the true ones. Kalle went at once to Made-koski.' Kalle's letter said in Finnish, 

 ' 1 have been to Made-koski for the Uinilo's down ; but there was not much of it there. The 

 birch stump was open at the top ; and who knows but the wind may have carried some of the 

 down away 1 ? Matthias Lasko took away a little from what I have sent, to see if he could make 

 out himself that it was Uinilo's. That Uinilo was caught actually from the top of those eggs ; 



indeed it is true I saw that in that birch stump there had at some other time been eggs ; 



for there were old pieces of egg-shell. Written 29th of Harvest-month (August) 1857. — Karl 

 Leppajervi.' 



" I was told by my man in Lapland that these four eggs had been blown with only one hole, 

 sufficiently well made, but that a great part of the yolk had been left inside. They were also 

 stained outside ; but he had cleaned them out, rounded the holes with a drill, and made a good 

 job of them. The down sent to me I found to agree generally with that on the body of the 

 female Smew ; but I did not make a careful examination, and I have not yet made it. 



"At the end of October 1858 I received these other four eggs. I found that the character 

 which I had previously observed, but which I had originally seen on only one of the first three, 

 was common to all the other four, namely that shown by the presence of a thin calcareous 

 covering outside the egg-shell proper, apparently of the same nature as that which is so con- 

 spicuous in the egg of the common tame Swan. Some attempts had been made in Sodankyla, 

 as my man told me, to scrape this off. 



" The following are the dimensions in two directions, with some description, of four eggs 

 which are now before me, picked out of the six which remain in my possession out of the nest 



of seven : Greatest length. Greatest breadth. 



"1st egg 2 -04 inches , , . . 1'52 inch. 



2nd egg . . . .... 2-05 „ . . ." . 1-47 „ 



3rd egg 2-04 „ 1-43 „ 



4th egg 2-04 „ .... 1-42 „ 



" Of the first egg the widest part is exactly halfway down ; but in one direction the inferior 

 fulness of the curve points out which is the small end of the egg — though, were there cut out of 

 the middle of each end a piece of the shell bounded by a circle of a quarter of an inch in radius, 

 I think, as the pieces lay upon a level surface, the piece from the small end of the egg would be 

 found less elevated than the other piece. In other words, the small end of the egg is even more 

 flattened than the large end, though the flattened area there is not so extensive as that of the 

 large end. 



" Of the second egg the conjugate diameter is nearer to the large end than it is to the small 

 end, the proportion of the distances being as 9 to 10. The curve towards the small end is less 

 suddenly changed than in the egg last described, though still the present egg is very broad at 

 the small end. 



"The third egg is equally flat at the small end with the second ; but it is rather less curyed 

 from the broadest part to the commencement of this flat end. 



" The fourth is still narrower than the last, before the flatness of the small end commences. 



3 a 



