71 
Mr. J. Wolley on the Breeding of the Smew. 
the same hole with eggs of that bird. As a consequence of this 
popular belief, I often had dwarf eggs of Sotka brought to me 
for Ungilo’s. From one trustworthy man, Piko Haki, I heard 
that some ten years before he had found a nest and taken the 
eggs on sale for eating to a resident trader, who had asked him 
where he had got Hens' eggs. Now Hens' eggs are unknown in 
the interior of the country, where I was; but at Uleaborg, 
where the trader had been familiar with them, they are about 
the size of our Bantam's eggs. This gave me the best indi¬ 
cation I had yet met with of the probable appearance of the 
egg, and I told my servant-lad Ludwig in confidence that, 
when we at length should get UngiWs eggs, they would be 
very like Wigeon's, though probably more white. Of course this 
was not to be talked of, as it might lead to attempts at impo¬ 
sition. It is possible that the small comparative size of the 
UngiWs eggs, and the habit of the bird turning out the Golden 
Eye, had made it little liked by the people, and that they used 
to catch it on its eggs and kill it, as they do Hawk-Owls and 
Tengmalm’s Owls. 
However that may be, year after year passed by, and I never 
once, out of the tens of thousands of duck-like birds that came 
under my notice, caught sight of a Smew. In time I came to 
hear from people who came from the Sodankyla district, a good 
way to the east of Muonioniska, that Uinilo, as it was there 
called, bred at more than one lake in that neighbourhood. In 
1856 I sent a very clever Lap, Martin Pekka, to this quarter 
for the egg-season, but he could not meet with Uinilo. 
In 1857 the clergyman of Muonioniska, Priest Liljeblad, had 
been transferred to Sodankyla; and in the spring of this year, 
an intelligent young man, Carl Leppajervi, went from Muonio¬ 
niska to be assistant-schoolmaster with his former teacher. I 
gave Carl strict charge to make every inquiry for Uinilo in that 
part of the world and of travellers from Kemi Trask. One day 
(the 30th July 1857), as I passed by the homestead of Regina's 
Calle, the famous steerer of the Muonio Falls, there was given to 
me a wooden box, such as is used in the country for carrying 
butter on a journey, addressed “ To the English gentleman Joh 
Woleg in Muoniovaara." The box was not tied nor secured in 
