364 TRAVELS OF A NATURALIST 



and two Petchora Pipits, which we did not at the time 

 know [see 'Ibis'], and which are quite different from 

 any we have got before. They looked as if they might be 

 Anthus aquaticus, but we could not say at the time.* 

 One fell to Seebohm's gun, the ? , when on the ground, 

 and the otJier to mine, just after descending from singing 

 in the air. They were frequenting marshy ground in the 

 willow-covered, rather open parts, and were shy and diffi- 

 cult to see except when singing. There appeared only to 

 be the single pair. Before I joined Seebohm, and before he 

 shot the 2 , he had been watching the ^ singing in the air 

 for half an hour, which it did without intermission, quite 

 unlike the Tree Pipit, and, indeed, more like a lark. The 

 song was peculiar, the first notes like those of the 

 Temminck's Htint, and the last a deep-drawn, low, and 

 almost guttural ' zu-z-z,' or, perhaps, rather as if the bird 

 were drawing in its breath at the time of utterance. The 

 feet are pale flesh-colour. Seebohm likened the first part 

 of its song to the second part of that of the Wood 

 Warbler, f 



I shot two of the Little Warblers, <? and ? , the <? 

 just after singing. The song could not be distinguished 

 from that of the Willow Warbler. That species was also 



'■'■'• On the examination of our specimens at Sheffield after our return 

 by Messrs. H. E. Dresser, Howard Saunders, and H. Seebohm, this 

 aquatic Pipit was pronounced to be a new species, and was thereupon 

 described as Anthus sechohmi. It afterwards proved to be the 

 Petchora Pipit {A. gustavi). 



f In Seebohm's account both these birds ai'e described as <? s, but 

 there must have been some error here, because these were the only 

 two seen, and they were shot at the same spot. In our list of 

 specimens, I find they are also both entered as c? s. It was probably 

 an hour after Seebohm first began to watch the male singing, that I 

 came up, but I shot the male a few minutes after he had shot the other 

 hird on the ground. Possibly they may have been two <j s in rivalry 

 for the same ? . No doubt they had been correctly sexed. (J.H.B.) 



