BIRDS OF RUSSIAN LAPLAND 153 



Capercaillie's nest with seven eggs nearly ready for hatching. The 

 nest was on rather damp ground and thinly covered with juniper 

 scrub. 



There is a good hut at the head of Lake Imandra where the river 

 Kurenga (Koro : Rae) enters it from Lake Pereyaver ; and good fishing 

 also we heard, confirmed by a small Lapp camp with nets and boats a 

 little lower down. A bitterly cold north-east wind, which brought 

 several heavy showers of rain, took us rapidly over the fifteen versts of 

 water to Raz-Navolok, where we arrived at i a.m., starved through. 

 The station consisted of one wooden hut, shown on Plate 58, and two 



small turf . I find it difHcult to select an English name which 



will convey any idea of these human residences, and therefore refer the 

 reader to Plate 14, where he will see two similar " houses" to the left 

 of the picture. As I opened the door of the hut, a puff of air met me 

 which seemed quite strong enough to take a wasp nest. A man and 

 his wife were asleep on a wooden bed in one corner, and a young man on 

 another in the opposite one. However wind and rain clearly showed 

 we must join the party. All got up at once to welcome us, and made 

 a good fire which cleared the atmosphere a little — most important item 

 — restored us to a reasonable degree of warmth, and cooked our 

 supper. I counted twelve people in that hut whilst we were eating. 

 At last some of them cleared out and we fixed our hammocks up, but 

 the fame of these new beds spread, and we had an admiring audience 

 of four women besides men to see us in them. Finally the man and 

 woman returned to their bed, two of our men joined the young man 

 in his, and we swung between them. The lady and her husband are 

 depicted in the left of Plate 59 and the youth to the right. 



June 2 2,rd. — Our Russian had lived at Raz-Navolok for some 

 time as one of the station hands before he was employed on the 

 telegraph, so he knew the country. He took us over a well-marked 

 path to the winter station which lies some little distance from Lake 

 Imandra. This is a place of much greater importance than the 

 summer one, and consists of a church, three large houses of two 



