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A DIARY OF ORNITHOLOGICAL OBSERVATION MADE 

 IN ICELAND DURING JUNE AND JULY, 1912. 



By Edmund Selous. 



(Continued from p. 313.) 



June 14th. — Next day — that is to say, this morning — I 

 started with Sigurdsson for another lake, on an island in which 

 a pair of Great Northern Divers had made their nest. Of this 

 my host had been advised by the occupant of the neighbouring 

 farm, the wild bleak country, that is to say, stretched round 

 about the lake in question, which, with all its seeming barren- 

 ness, has yet a good deal of grass, and supports both sheep and 

 cows — in fact is not barren at all, but only looks it by virtue 

 of its bleakness and wildness, and the black, stony hills and, 

 farther off, mountains, that rear themselves out of it. It was 

 six hours' journeying through this wilderness, much of the way 

 being so swampy that every plod forward was a sinking down, 

 as well — happily, however, not so deep as it gave me the 

 sensation of being. At length we came to a row of small 

 gables, the slopes of which descended to the level of the grass, 

 with which they were largely covered, so that the horses, when 

 we dismounted, began to graze upon them. Under one of these 

 we were soon made welcome by the farmer and his wife, the 

 latter of whom made and poured out coffee for us, to the 

 pleasure of which that of biscuits, of no mean order, was soon 

 added. Then the farmer, having mounted his own horse and 

 we ours again, guided us to the place, and, in due course, my 

 tent was set up and I left alone in it. The island, or rather 

 islet, of which I have spoken, is a tiny little round, grassy 

 hillock rising from a marginal circlet of stones and small rocks. 

 Just at one point, the grass comes down to the water's edge or 

 would do so, but for a steep bank, some six or nine inches in 

 height, perhaps, which divides them, the stones running out 

 from it, with a little channel of navigation in their midst. It is 



