262 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



comparison with what it was, as described by a friend a few years 

 ago, at a more favourable time. 



The particular ground we fixed on to explore was the valley 

 of the Maskejok, a tributary of the Tana-elv, one of the great 

 rivers, running north into the Arctic Ocean. As the object of 

 this paper is to give a few notes on the birds we saw, we do not 

 propose to go into the whole journey — the poling up the river, 

 the shooting of the rapids, the heavy and fatiguing porterages, 

 our life under canvas, and our struggles with the mosquitoes, 

 " the demons of the place " — but to give a short description of 

 the country from an ornithological point of view, and then to 

 give short notes on each of the species of birds met with. 



The Maskejok joins the Tana on its western side about four 

 miles north of Seida, where the road from Tana mouth to Vadso 

 crosses the river and leaves the Tana Valley. The Maskejok 

 Valley here widens out, and the river takes a very zigzag course, 

 running into the main stream between high sand-banks, its mouth 

 being guarded by a sand bar, which makes it very shallow, so 

 much so, that when the river is low, canoes drawing only three 

 or four inches have to be hauled across by hand. For the first 

 few miles above its mouth the river runs almost due west, turning 

 then south-west. For the whole of its course it runs in a well- 

 defined valley, for the most part about a mile wide, the river 

 ranging in width from forty to sixty yards. The banks are low 

 on one side and high on the other, varying with the windings 

 of the river ; higher up, where there are fewer bends, both banks 

 are for the most part uniformly low. For the first few miles, 

 as has been said above, the course is zigzag, so much so, that 

 after poling for half an hour the canoe is only fifty yards in a 

 bee-line from where you started ; here there are alternate stretches 

 of deep, fairly still water, and short quick shallow runs, where 

 the bottom changes from sand to gravel. Higher up the bottom 

 gradually becomes more rocky, and some eight miles up the 

 rapids begin. The first or long rapid is some five kilometres of 

 rough, rushing water, with boulders of all sizes appearing above 

 the surface, and for the most part only a foot or two deep ; at 

 the top of this the river makes a sharp bend round into the first 

 pool ; above this there are another two kilometres of rapids to 

 the second pool, and then comes a succession of short rapids 



