BIRDS OF RUSSIAN LAPLAND 109 



Two of these had rufous-coloured breasts, and the remainder buff; if 

 they were a family party of the year the eggs must have been laid 

 when most of the country was under snow. 



Kjeldsen watched an interesting contest from the ship this evening ; 

 a Great Black-backed Gull secured a young Oyster-catcher on the beach 

 and made off with it, whereupon he was promptly attacked by the two 

 parents, who each seized a wing and twice brought him down to the 

 water; but he finally shook them off and escaped with his prey. 

 Another bird in trouble was a Fulmar, which swam up to the ship 

 with a yard of fishing line hanging from its neck. At the end of the 

 line was a cod-hook, which very soon caught on the rope holding our 

 boat astern, and thus enabled us to haul the bird on board. The end 

 of the line passed through the skin of the neck on the side and about 

 half-way down, but we could not see what there was in the throat to 

 hold it ; and as the skin round the string was neither inflamed nor raw 

 he had probably carried his disagreeable appendage some time. We 

 cut the string off as close as we could and then put him back in the 

 sea, when he proceeded to have a bath, constantly preening the place 

 where the string had been removed. He remained about the ship 

 half the day, eating any scraps thrown to him, except cabin-biscuit, 

 which was doubtless too rough for his sore throat. 



The Red-throated Diver's nest (Plate 44) was photographed on 

 Heno during this visit. It was about twelve inches above the water, 

 and a well-marked groove showed where the bird slid up and down. 

 No divers had laid on the margin of the large lake, which had been 

 fouled from end to end by the ducks ; the constant disturbance the 

 latter caused had probably more to do with this than the dirt. The 

 ducks had been feeding chiefly on a small, dark, blue-shelled bivalve, 

 which must be very common here as stretches of the beach are com- 

 posed of these shells. 



We spent the morning of July 3rd on Little Heno. When walking 

 up the low spit of ground to the south-east, I Hushed a Velvet Scoter 

 off its nest with seven eggs, shown in Plate 45. This was the first 



