ON THE TUNDRA 137 



eggs of this rare bird, was a source of considerable 

 satisfaction to us. Our two best things were undoubtedly 

 the new pipit and the Siberian chiffchaff. We hoped 

 that both these birds might be new, but our acquaintance 

 with the various Indian species that might possibly migrate 

 into this resfion was not sufficient to warrant us in enter- 

 taining more than a hope. We therefore looked forward 

 to our first day on the tundra with more than usual anxiety 

 and interest. 



The tundra forms the east bank of the Petchora, and 

 we anchored our boat under a steep cliff, perhaps sixty 

 feet high, a crumbling slope of clay, earth, sand, gravel, 

 turf, but no rock. We looked over a gently rolling 

 prairie country, stretching away to a flat plain, beyond 

 which was a range of low rounded hills, some eight or 

 ten miles off. It was in fact a moor, with here and there 

 a large flat bog, and everywhere abundance of lakes. 

 For seven or eight months in the year it is covered with 

 from two to three feet of snow. Snow was still lying in 

 large patches in the more sheltered recesses of the steep 

 river-banks, and on one of the lakes a large floe of ice, 

 six inches thick, was still unmelted. The vegetation on 

 the dry parts of the tundra was chiefly sedges, moss, and 

 lichen, of which the familiar reindeer-moss was especially 

 abundant. In some places there was an abundance of 

 cranberries, with last year's fruit still eatable, preserved 

 by the frost and snow of winter. Here and there we met 

 with a dwarf shrub, not unlike a rhododendron, with a 

 white flower and aromatic-scented \^2M^^{Led2U}i palustre), 

 a heath-like plant with a pale red flower {^Andromeda 

 polifolid), and dwarf birch [Bettila nana) running on the 

 ground almost like ivy. The flat boggy places had evi- 

 dently been shallow lakes a few weeks ago after the 

 sudden thaw, and were now black swamps ; water in the 



