BIRDS OF RUSSIAN LAPLAND 105 



that it was 4 p.m. on the 27th when we sighted Korga. It was then 

 fairly clear over the land, but foggy round all the rest of the horizon, 

 with stiff w.N.w. breeze. The captain went in at quarter speed from 

 eleven fathoms to four, then he dropped the anchor two miles from 

 shore, and told me he did not consider it safe for a boat to leave, as 

 we should probably be unable to get back to the ship ! However, we 

 had not come all that way only to look at an island from a distance 

 of a couple of miles ; and as two of the men volunteered to row us, 

 we started at once before the weather got worse. On nearing the 

 shore it became clear that owing to the heavy surf there was serious 

 risk of the boat being stove in ; so choosing the quietest place where 

 a small shoal broke the swell a little, Hetley and I dropped overboard 

 and got safely to land in about the centre of the coast line. A 

 strange and curious spot it was : a long low stretch of land scarcely 

 rising above high-tide mark, and in fact showing signs of being 

 occasionally covered with water over most of its area ; while on this 

 flat surface were scattered numbers of sand-dunes, some of those near 

 us rising to thirty and thirty-five feet, and gradually diminishing in 

 height towards each end of the island. Most of these dunes appeared 

 to have been built up by the wind round clumps of a coarse glaucous- 

 coloured grass very similar to that common round the English coast 

 in sandy districts. And the process was still going on rapidly in 

 places, for some nests made this year were already partly buried. 

 Some of the dunes were of old formation and were covered with a 

 finer herbage, amongst which beautiful large forget-me-nots and a 

 large mauve- coloured flower I knew well by sight (but alas not by 

 name) grew freely, and were doubly welcome amid their desolate 

 surroundings. 



Two things were clear directly we landed ; the first, that we must 

 not linger, for the men evidently had difiiculty in holding the boat 

 off the shore, and the wind was rising ; and secondly, that our trouble 

 in reaching the island had not been wasted, as we were in the midst 

 of the largest colony of Glaucous Gulls I had yet seen in the north, 



