340 TRAVELS OF A NATURALIST 



usually alight higher up the stem, and even perch on a 

 horizontal branch or alight on the very summit. 



Cuckoo. — The cuckoo was heard several times on each 

 day, and on the first night v^e were there, about midnight. 



Swallow. — We shot one which was frequenting the 

 village. 



Capercaillie. — The hen is called ' tye-tyohrah,' and the 

 male 'chookhah.' We did not see any, but found 

 quantities of their droppings, through the wood and 

 nooses set for the purpose of catching them when they 

 come to dust themselves in the sand. It is simply a 

 string noose fastened and hung over a place scraped in 

 the sand and bushed over with branches. 



Siberian, Jay. — Common, and seen frequenting the 

 edges of the wood which surrounds the opens and hollows 

 in the forest, and feeding their young, one of which we 

 obtained in the full plumage of the year. On several 

 occasions we saw Siberian Jays cling to and climb up the 

 stems of the trees exactly like a Woodpecker. Nor did 

 they appear to choose rough-barked stems only, as we 

 saw one distinctly climbing the smooth stem of a birch- 

 tree. This Woodpecker-hke habit, however, does not 

 appear to be exercised for any length of time, nor in 

 search of food, but only to get over the space intervening 

 between two branches which it cannot hop. It soon 

 returns to its more frequent habit— a series of upward 

 springs from branch to branch spirally round the stem ; 

 often mounting thus nearly the whole length of the tree. 

 The old birds are now moulting, and are not worth 

 shooting. Young quills are appearing on the tail 

 and wings, but there is no appearance of moult on the 

 rest of the bird. Their loud, harsh cry on more than one 

 occasion reminded me of the ' hack, hack, hack ' of the 

 Peregrine at its eyries in Scotland, and again of the 

 scream of some one of the larger AVoodpeckers. When 



