ARCHANGEL 167 



Cholmogory — a very different time from what we had 

 been told. We called upon the people to whom we had 

 letters, gave in our passports, and then had supper. 



About 10 o'clock p.m. Carl Craemers and I went out, 

 crossed the river, and made for a fir- wood about a verst 

 off. We passed through a thick willow growth into a 

 park-like country, where many cows were feeding. 



In the willow-wood we saw only a nest of young 

 Wood Sandpipers and a Hare, and in the high fir-wood 

 Carl found a Eedwing's nest with three young and two 

 eggs. We saw a large raptorial bird, which I took to be 

 a Black Kite. Its tail was slightly forked, its plumage 

 dark, its cry like a Buzzard's, but shriller. We could not 

 find any nest. Then about half a verst further we saw 

 Divers, Ducks, and heard the ' whit-whit ' in the marshes, 

 probably the cry of the Spotted Crake. 



We recrossed the river, and from the boat shot three 

 Common Gulls. Then we tried the back of the town — 

 small alder thickets and pasture-ground — but were not 

 much more successful, getting only one ' Kuleek ' (Terek 

 Sandpiper), one Yellow-breasted Bunting, one Garden 

 Warbler, and a Black-headed Gull. 



July 12. 



It being now about 3 a.m. on Friday, the 12th of 

 July, we came in, awakened Alston and Piottuch, and 

 had our sleep. 



About 4 a.m. Piottuch and Alston went out. At first 

 they could see nothing, but after a time they both — 

 separately — happened on a great colony of Yellow- 

 breasted Buntings, of which they brought thirteen home, 

 besides losing seven or eight in the long grass. They 

 were all about in some large, damp meadows covered with 

 a sort of dock, and they constantly perched on the hiah 

 stalks of the docks and on the longer grass. There were. 



