at first. The nest was merely a scrape in the reindeer-moss, about a dozen yards from a small pool of water. The three eggs were about half-incubated, and rather more distinctly marked than the usual type, with very little of the cloudy suffused markings.
Red-throated Diver (Colymbus septentrionalis).—On two occasions a pair of these birds were seen fishing in one of the upper pools of the river, and once a pair—probably the same—were seen on a tarn about a mile from the same place. There were no signs of a nest round the margin, and no Divers were seen on the lake or in any of the fjeld tarns.
Skua (Stercorarius parasiticus?).—One night on the fjeld two birds were seen flying some way off, which, through the glasses, were certainly Skuas, and, as their tails were noticeably long, they were possibly Buffon's Skuas.
Arctic Tern (Sterna macrura).—Every time we were on the lake we saw eight or ten Arctic Terns; they were always flying rather high up, and on one occasion they were mobbing an Osprey. They were possibly breeding on one of the further lakes, but, owing to the great difficulty of getting the canoes up the intervening streams, we never succeeded in penetrating so far.
Although the results of our small expedition were nothing out of the ordinary, and somewhat disappointing, the open life in a high latitude, and in the vast solitudes of forest and fjeld, was, with all its drawbacks—and those not inconsiderable ones of mosquitoes and other insect-pests—quite enjoyable, and one can look back at it now, far from its humming throng, as a delightful experience. It is possible that anyone enjoying a better season, and penetrating farther into the wilds than we did, would do much better. Two pieces of advice we would offer to anyone thinking of doing so: go prepared with plenty of "bugjuice," and with your minds made up for a perpetual mosquito war; and, secondly, take your canoes up lightly loaded, sending most of your equipment over the fjeld to the lake by pack-horses, and thus avoid many wearisome porterages.
