

300 Messrs. H. Seebohm and J. A. Harvie Brown on 
similar to what has already been described. A smaller stream 
runs into the inland sea on its south-western shore, the bot- 
tom of which is a quicksand, formed by a deposit of fine sand 
upon the top of the ooze, which quicksand stretches out 
some distance from its mouth. This little stream rises in a 
low marshy meadow studded with small pools, and seems to 
be connected underground with these latter, and does not, as 
we at first supposed, flow from a range of lakes upon the 
higher tundra, unless, indeed, there be underground com- 
munication with them also. 
It was upon the sloping tundra, and upon the sloping mea- 
dow, that we found all our nests of eggs and young in down 
of the Little Stint. Four of these sets of eggs and young— 
which, for convenience, we will call Nos. 1, 2, 3, and 4, in 
the order in which they were found—were got not far from 
the neck of the peninsula, on the slope facing the N.E. 
This part of the tundra bears a thick growth of arctic bram- 
ble (Rubus arcticus), which, in some places, scarcely leaves a 
square yard free of vegetation, The dwarf rhododendron 
(Ledum palustre) is also abundant, but is small and incon- 
spicuous. Large quantities of deep, soft, faded Sphagnum 
cover also a considerable part of the ground; and growing 
through this are Carices (Carex rariflora and another) and 
grasses, and a green star-shaped moss, the latter being the. 
same which is often found on the ground frequented by the 
Grey Plovers. Reindeer-moss is scarce upon this Little- 
Stint ground, growing only in patches here and there; but 
the innumerable small round hummocks, with which parts of 
it are thickly covered, bear a thin crust of minute white 
lichen, which, blending with the darker colour of the peat 
soil upon which it grows, gives a hoary appearance to the 
higher portions of the slope. In many places this grey hum- 
mocky ground is sharply defined, giving place at its edges to 
tracts of slightly damper ground, which are covered with 
matted white and green grass, or patches of cotton-grasses 
(Eriophoron vaginatum and E. polystachyon, var. latifolium*), 
* We are indebted for assistance in naming a small collection of plants 
of the tundra, formed by us, principally at Dvoinik, to Professor A. Dick- 

