the Birds of the Lower Petchora. 107 



the centre. This is followed by a hundred miles of true delta, 

 ending in a further seventy-five miles of submerged delta or 

 lagoon, bounded by the range of islands called the Golievski 

 banks, where the Petchora enters the Arctic ocean between 

 the promontory of Russki Zavarot and the island of Varandai, 

 We made Alexievka our headquarters, occupying some of the 

 houses belonging to the Petchora Timber-trading Company. 

 The voyage occupied ten days, during which we added fifteen 

 more birds to our list. We remained six weeks at Alexievka, 

 making numerous visits to the neighbouring islands and to 

 the tundra, and extending our excursion to the mouth of the 

 river, adding about another dozen fresh species to the list of 

 birds. On 2nd August we sailed from Alexievka in the 

 schooner 'Triad,^ 149 tons register, chartered with larch to 

 Cronstadt, and landed at Elsinore after a passage of thirty-five 

 days. 



The whole of the north of Russia through which we sledged 

 is one vast forest of spruce, Scotch fir, and larch, with oc- 

 casionally birch and willow. Now and then we came upon 

 an oasis of cultivated land surrounding a village ; and occa- 

 sionally we crossed a flat open plain which would doubtless 

 be a swamp in summer, too wet for trees to grow upon. The 

 country is gently undulating, with no hills of any magni- 

 tude. The timber gradually lessened in size as we proceeded 

 northward, and finally ceased altogether soon after we had 

 crossed the arctic circle. We then came upon the tundra, 

 a dreary flat extent of country reaching to the sea — not a 

 dead flat, but a gently undulating moor, an arctic prairie, a 

 Siberian tundra, with occasionally distant bluff's upon the 

 horizon. The east bank of the Petchora is generally a steep 

 cliff" of mud, clay, gravel, sand, or turf, but never rock, 

 rising sometimes sixty or seventy feet. The foot of this cliff" 

 is sometimes stony; and now and then we came upon a 

 borddcr upon the tundra, probably dropped there by some 

 iceberg during the glacial period. In the bed of the Petchora, 

 before the flood came, we sometimes picked up limestone and 

 other fossils washed down from the interior; but the whole 

 country is obviously of diluvial origin. Occasionally the 



