268 TRAVELS OF A NATURALIST 



Znaminsky kindly sends us delicacies from time to 

 time, in the shape of meat-rolls, pieces of salmon, etc. 



April 20. 



On the morning of Tuesday, the 20th of April, we 

 had for breakfast a dish of Snow Buntings, half of them 

 cooked in Seebohm's machine and half in mine. They 

 were delicious. 



Piottuch started early — about 4 a.m. — with my gun, 

 to try and discover a locality for birds. After breakfast 

 we swung our hammocks and had our morning pipe as 

 usual. Hammocks are assuredly most luxurious things, 

 and we enjoy them so much that, when in them we feel 

 much too lazy to do an3^thing but smoke. Sometimes 

 Seebohm begins to speak, but the words die away in 

 a whisper or a yawn, and as he meets with little 

 encouragement on my part to continue the conversa- 

 tion, we soon again entirely devote ourselves to ' rocking 

 our cradles.' 



We ourselves strolled along the river to the north end 

 of the town, and went up a little narrow valley, thinly 

 clad with scrub and a few spruce-firs, in search of birds, 

 but the only new one seen was a Yellowhammer. 

 Numbers of Snow Buntings were frequenting the fields 

 upon which the natives were laying down or spreading 

 manure. The partial thaw — in the morning from the sun 

 above, but later in the day from a gentle wind with 

 cloudy sky — seems to have scattered the buntings over 

 the manure-covered fields, and the town itself is com- 

 paratively deserted by them. We had good opportunities 

 to-day of watching their motions on the ground and in 

 the air, and came to the conclusion that they both walk 

 and hop frequently; perhaps the former more than the 

 latter ; and that they run less frequently. The marks on 

 the snow showed also their motions very distinctly. 



