BIRDS OF RUSSIAN LAPLAND 75 



food — and showed no signs of nesting. Shortly before reaching the 

 lake we shot a nice pair of Willow-Grouse ; these were near the top 

 of the hill at an elevation of 550 feet. The male's plumage cor- 

 responded with that shot on the 3rd in the distribution of the colour 

 and white, but the former was of a much darker tone, and contained 

 more black. The amount of colour on the female was very similar 

 to that on the female Ptarmigan, the lighter part being of a burnt- 

 sienna colour in place of the yellow-sienna of the latter, and the feet 

 were free from feathers. On dissection, their crops proved to be full 

 of the ends of birch twigs — not sufficiently swollen to be called 

 buds — and a little crowberry. The eggs in the ovary of the female 

 had not begun to enlarge. Close to them we secured a male 

 Ptarmigan, all three being shot in the valley on the left of Plate 30. 

 This plate is included chiefly on account of the large size of the 

 erratic, one unbroken mass, which occupies nearly the full width of 

 the picture. It was a large sheet of ice which carried this " pebble," 

 and dropped it on this hill-top 550 feet above the present sea-level. 

 The Pomor and his reindeer are in the centre, while Kjeldsen, holding 

 the male Willow-Grouse, sits near the end of the erratic to the left. 

 I should say that the lumps — each the size of half a large walnut — 

 on the body of the reindeer are caused by the maggot of a fly ; 

 although these spoil the skins and cause the poor beasts much pain, 

 none of their owners appear to take any steps to remove them. The 

 reindeer stopped very quietly while we had lunch, and tried to take 

 the man's bread out of his pocket, but would not eat Dutch cheese. 

 In feeding, it used its lips with a constant quick movement to gather 

 the lichen off the ground, taking but little of the crowberry. 



On reaching the lake we found that two-thirds of its surface was 

 now free from ice, and the level of the water had risen so much that 

 most of the islands were covered, their positions only indicated by the 

 willow-scrub. The large blocks of ice photographed on the 3rd had 

 been swept down or covered by the flood. Evidently the snow on 

 the hills bordering the upper part of the river was now melting 



