no A TRIP TO HABARIKI 



made by these birds when feeding. One of our sailors 

 shot a male. We saw soon after a pair of three-toed 

 woodpeckers, but did not then succeed in securing either 

 of them. On another occasion we heard the tapping 

 sound of the woodpecker's beak ; a tap, then a slight 

 pause, followed by a rapid succession of taps, and, after a 

 second slight pause, a final tap. I imitated the sound as 

 well as I could with a cartridge on the stock of my gun. 

 The bird immediately flew to a dead larch-trunk, close to 

 where we were standing, and perched, its head thrown 

 back listening, some fifty feet from the ground. In this 

 position it fell to my companion's gun. It was a female. 



We heard the cuckoo's familiar note repeatedly every 

 day ; the first time it was near midnight, soon after our 

 arrival at Habariki. 



The hooded crow and magpie were as abundant as 

 usual in this part of Europe. The Siberian jay was very 

 common ,in the wood, and very noisy ; all the more so, 

 perhaps, for the number of young birds among them. I 

 saw on one occasion an old jay feeding a young one. I 

 shot the latter ; it was in the full plumage of the first year. 

 The old birds were very tame and easy to secure, for they 

 were in full moult. The body bore no appearance of it, 

 but the wing and tail feathers were " in the pen." The 

 flight of the Siberian jay is noiseless, resembling some- 

 what that of the owl, sailing with wings and tail expanded 

 before alighting. These birds like ascending from branch 

 to branch, close by the stem of a birch or fir. When 

 they cannot hop from one bough to another they ascend 

 the trunk in the fashion of the woodpecker. This habit 

 we both of us specially noted. We did not hear their 

 song, but they were constantly uttering harsh loud cries, 

 some of which reminded us of those of the peregrine at its 

 nest, while others resembled the scream of the wood- 



