ORNITHOLOGICAL OBSERVATION IN ICELAND. 143 



but, when I got to the heights above it, the shed, which, unsightly 

 as it was, had before been a refuge, and looked like one, stood 

 now all lonely and comfortless, and I saw that he was gone. I 

 was, by this time, surrounded by a vast halo of Mosquitoes, from 

 which, though my face was netted and my hands gloved, I 

 could not adequately guard my wrists, on which I was bitten 

 over and over again. I carried an umbrella, which, for 

 Mosquitoes in moderation, is a very good thing, for comparatively 

 few come under it, and those that do fly up into its dome, and 

 there settle. So they did now, with a sound like that of hail 

 coming down on it, but their numbers made this a loathsome 

 sight, and their smell, as a consequence of these numbers, was 

 very disagreeable. Also holding it up exposed the wrist, yet I 

 could not prevail on myself to put it down and let the hosts 

 close in on me in all their density. It is not a mere matter of 

 getting bitten or not (though the bites "took" with me badly) 

 but there is something in the very presence of these venomous, 

 whirling swarms, taking the place of all nature, about one, as it 

 were — for they absolutely stop all enjoyment of sight or sound, 

 nay almost the very sense of either, except in relation to their 

 disgusting selves — that acts like a panic, bringing a sort of con- 

 fusion on the mind, and, with it, a frantic desire to get away, 

 and have relief from this horror. It was with such an almost 

 desperate feeling of necessity that I had been driven from 

 the tent, as though to stay were impossible, and now, under a 

 still more urgent degree of compulsion, I was flying back to it 

 again, as to my only refuge for the next forty hours or so. As I 

 sighted it again from the line of black volcanic precipices that 

 frowned above it, and began to pick my harassed steps down the 

 one descendible gulley amongst them, my feelings were gloomy 

 as their frown. I reached it, and all thought of Eagles or 

 any bird in the world vanished for those forty hours of " damned 

 minutes " which I had to pass inside it. I pulled the claps 

 tightly together, and fastened them, drew down the window- 

 blinds, and the task now was, by successive killings of those which 

 clustered on the canvas and made the vast majority, to keep tbe 

 attacking aerial bands from increasing ; and this I was just 

 about able to do, but more and more at the expense of my 

 wrists, especially the right one, which began to look curious, 



