448 Messrs. H. Seebohm and J. A. Harvie Brown on 
work, were often scarcely to be distinguished from the low- 
lying sandbanks we were in search of. (Vide also Gurney’s 
f Rambles of a Naturalist in Egypt/ 1876, p. 92, where he 
makes a similar comparison regarding the flocks of Ducks at 
Lake Menzaleh.) 
CEdemia edsca (L.). 
On the 27th June, whilst wandering amongst the many 
lakes which dot the tundra around Stanavoialachta, Harvie 
Brown saw a single pair of these birds flying over the tundra 
some distance off, conspicuous beside a number of the Com¬ 
mon Scoter, which were haunting a lake close by, from their 
superior size and large white alar specula. One of them, 
presumably the female, dropped amongst some dwarf willows 
and birch in a hollow about a verst off; and the male con¬ 
tinued his flight. In the hope of finding the nest, Harvie 
Brown searched the whole of the patch of dwarf wood care¬ 
fully, but failed to flush the bird or find the nest. 
We visited Stanavoialachta a second time, later in the sea¬ 
son, viz. on 6th July; and we proposed to repair together to 
these lakes and search again for the Velvet Scoters, the only 
birds of the species we had seen. Scarcely had we made up 
our minds to this, and were crossing the tundra together to¬ 
wards the lakes, when almost from amongst our feet up got 
the bird from the nest, and Seebohm shot it. The nest was 
under a creeping, matted, dwarf birch, far from any water, 
and contained eight eggs and a good supply of down. These 
were the only eggs we procured of the Velvet Scoter in Russia, 
and we saw no more birds. 
-/Mergus albellus (L.). 
Habariki is a small hamlet of about a dozen houses. It 
stands on an earth cliff on the bank of a 'kouria/ and is gene¬ 
rally safe even from the higher floods which cover the sur¬ 
rounding country, being about fifty feet above the winter 
level of the river. This spring the floods had raised the level 
about twenty feet. (It is at Habariki that the river-steamer 
lies in winter quarters; and the captain lives in the village.) 
In exceptionally high floods, after the disappearance of the 
