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THROUGH FINLAND. 387
From Pello to Kardis is eighteen Englifh miles, a paflage which
was wholly performed againft the current by the vigorous arms of
our Finlandifh Laplanders, who aftonifhed us by the addrefs as
well as the ftrength they difplayed, in the progrefs of this moft la-
borious navigation.
We obferved all along the river a particular mode, quite new
to me, of obtaining the eggs of an aquatic bird, which is named
mergus merganfor by Linnzus. The natives are very fond of the
eggs of this bird, which has very fingular habits for one of this
defcription. Whether it is from a kind of indolence, or a defire
of concealing its eggs from birds of prey, it never builds a neft.
The neft of aquatics in general, feems to be of no ufe but that of
holding the eggs; for their young take to the water the moment
they are out of the fhell, and acquire their food in their own ele-
ment. The mergus merganfor, inftead of building a {mall neft
like the ducks, on the banks, or among the reeds or bufhes, chufes
to lay her eggs in the trunk of an old tree, in which time, or the
hand of man, has made fuch an excavation, as fhe can conveniently
enter. The perfon that waylays the bird for her eggs, places
againft a fir or pine tree fomewhere near the bank of the river,
a decayed trunk, with a hole in its middle: the bird enters, and
lays her eggs in it: prefently the peafant comes, and takes away
the eggs, leaving, however, one or two. The animal returns, and
finding but a fingle egg, lays two or three more, which the man
purloins in the fame manner: the bird ftill returns, and, as if fhe
had forgot the eggs fhe had laid, proceeds once more to complete
3D2 the
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