BIRDS OF RUSSIAN LAPLAND 6i 



Buntings, the latter all males ; also some Meadow-Pipits, several pairs 

 of Oyster-catchers, one Turnstone, and one Dunlin. The advanced 

 guard of the Arctic Terns were in flocks on the shore, most of them 

 resting on the seaweed-covered rocks. Three or four pairs of Great 

 Black-backed and Herring Gulls had come ; Common Gulls were 

 more numerous. The only nests we found were about a dozen 

 Eiders', some of them with six eggs, two Oyster-catchers', each with 

 three, and three Common Gulls, 3-1-1. Evidently there was nothing 

 to stay for at present, and after walking for two or three hours over 

 the east half of the island, we rejoined the steamer with one prominent 

 idea, namely dinner. But alas ! that was not to be that night, for the 

 roll was so bad we were only able to put things safe in the cabin and 

 then lie down. Kjeldsen woke me at i a.m. — his beard full of snow 

 — to say the fog was so bad we could not make the harbour of Zip- 

 Navolok at the n.e. corner of the Ribatchi peninsula, where Captain 

 Hansen had intended to anchor till the weather improved. This 

 entailed lying-to for an hour in that swell, not a pleasant time I Then 

 the fog lifted a little and we were soon after at anchor and at rest. 



May 2Sth. — We left Zip-Navolok at noon, and had a rough passage 

 down the coast to Kildin island ; here I decided to stay and wait for 

 a change in the wind. Kildin island lies in about the centre of the 

 Murman coast of Russian Lapland ; and is ten miles long by three 

 and a-half miles in its widest part. The Sound separating it from 

 the mainland varies in width from two miles to little more than half 

 a mile, and is generally very deep, so that there is only anchorage near 

 the shore. Far the best anchorage, in fact the only safe one, is in a 

 bay at the s.E. end of the island, called Monastery bay, from a fortified 

 monastery having been there at one time. This was destroyed by the 

 English in 1809, and no trace of it remains. On its site stands the 

 one house now existing on the island, and inhabited by a Norwegian, 

 of whom more anon. There is an abundant supply of good water to 

 be obtained from a shallow well a short distance from the house. The 

 geological formation of Kildin varies in a marked degree from that of 



