136 ALEXIEVKA 



coldness of the weather we did not then hear it in full 

 song, as we did at Ust-Zylma and Habariki. We found 

 Buffon's skuas numerous in Alexievka ; they were usually 

 in flocks of five or six. There seemed to be only one 

 common sparrow in the place, and this I shot. 



The 22nd of June was inscribed in our journal as a 

 red-letter day. We were dead tired when we turned 

 into our hammocks at half-past ten the night before, and 

 slept the clock round and an hour over, rising at half- 

 past eleven. When we woke we found it was a bright 

 warm day, the wind had dropped, and the great river 

 looked no longer like an angry sea. We decided to 

 cross it, ordered our men to get the boat ready, made a 

 hasty breakfast, and set sail at last for the land of promise, 

 the mysterious tundra. We pictured this great land to 

 ourselves as a sort of ornithological Cathay, where all 

 sorts of rare and possibly unknown birds might be found. 

 So far we had been just a little disappointed with the 

 results of our trip. July would soon be upon us, and we 

 had not yet solved one of the six problems that we had 

 proposed to ourselves as the main objects of our journey. 

 We had not seen the least trace of the knot, the curlew 

 sandpiper, the sanderling, or the grey plover. Some 

 birds that we had at first fancied might be Little stints in 

 full breeding plumage, we were now thoroughly con- 

 vinced were nothino- but Temminck's stints, and as we 

 had hitherto met with but one species of swan, we had 

 reluctantly come to the conclusion that we had not yet 

 seen Bewick's swan. We congratulated ourselves that 

 our observations on the arrival of migratory birds at 

 Ust-Zylma were not without interest. We were much 

 pleased that we had shot one specimen of the Arctic 

 willow-warbler. The abundance of yellow-headed wag- 

 tails, and the prospect of bringing home many of the 



