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I held my first meeting in the repairing shop at Irkutsk at 3 P.M., March 4. It was a big crowd of working men and women. The Russian women work on the railways in such employments as carriage and wagon cleaners, snow and ice shovellers, and even repairing gangs on different sections of the line have a sprinkling of the fair sex.

The engineer nodded: "That will give us about twenty-two hours leeway," he said gravely, "if we make twelve knots." "Yes, if you make twelve knots: can you do it?" "I can't say; depends on that gang of shovellers and the way they behave. They're a tough lot jail-birds and tramps, most of 'em. If they get ugly there ain't but one thing left; that, I suppose, you won't object to."

Floating on the surface of the deeper water, are fleets of the Anatidæ, the Coromandel teal , the Indian hooded gull , the Caspian tern, and a countless variety of ducks and smaller fowl pintails , teal , red-crested pochards , shovellers , and terns.

Though it was ten of the clock, they were still there: sleepy brown mallards, glossy-winged teal, long-necked shovellers, greyish speckled widgeon: these and others less common, representatives of all the native tribe.

Making a sudden dash, and before any one could realize her intention, Brenda leaped past the shovellers, sprang over the embankment they were throwing up, and by the aid of a bench sprang up the four-foot wall, through the flame-bordered aperture, and disappeared, her clothing apparently in a blaze. The war-whoops immediately ceased. No attempt at pursuit or rescue was made.

All that afternoon we "lingered in the lap of luxury," as "Bill" put it. Though the workmen had left, the work was still to continue. The crew coaled till twelve o'clock, working in quarter watches. The following day another barge came alongside and part of the crew had to turn to and help the hired shovellers. "So much," said "Stump," snapping his fingers, "for the officers' assurances."

In this way I shot teal, widgeon, pintail, shovellers, and finally the noble rosy-bill, which was esteemed for the table above all the others.

New gangs of shovellers strung on flat-cars were being pushed forward. Down the hill, spent and disabled engines were returning from the front, and while they took sidings, fresh engines, close-coupled, steamed slowly like leviathans past them up the hill. The moment the track was clear, the private car was backed again down the ridge.

Let us content ourselves to be earthly creatures, and hold communion of spirit in such modes as are ordained to us. . . . I was not at the end of Long Wharf to-day, but in a distant region, my authority having been put in requisition to quell a rebellion of the captain and "gang" of shovellers aboard a coal-vessel.

The species I have found most particularly infected have been mallards, shovellers, teal, gadwall and pintails, and the birds, outwardly in the best condition, have frequently been found loaded with sacs of these parasites and only the turning back of the breast skin can disclose their presence. The greatest slaughter of wild ducks by disease occurred on Great Salt Lake, Utah.