222 Messrs. H. Seebohm and J. A. Harvie BroAvn on 



broTTii ; and we again met with Golden Plovers at Vassilkova, 

 Yooshina^ Stanavoialachta, and Dvoinik. They frequented 

 totally diflferent ground from the Grey Plovers^ affecting the 

 round exposed knolls in preference to the flat bogs, and being 

 almost always found where the tundra had more of the rolling 

 character of prairie, intersected by willow-patches and minia- 

 ture valleys, narrow deep streams of pure sparkling water, and 

 clear tarns surrounded with brushwood. It is worthy of note 

 that we scarcely ever found the Golden and Grey Plover's 

 frequenting the same kind of ground. If a patch of Grey-Plover 

 ground lay surrounded by knolls of dryer tundra, that patch 

 might hold its pair of Grey Plovers, which, when disturbed, 

 would occasionally alight on the higher gi'ouud ; but it was 

 rarely that we saw a Golden Plover settle on the hummocky 

 ground at the base of the knolls, though in other countries 

 (as, for instance, Scotland) the latter is often their favourite 

 ground for breeding on. Several pairs of Golden Plovers 

 were watched to their nests or shot at them. They exhibited, 

 if any thing, rather more shyness than the Grey Plovers did, 

 though in general habits and mode of approaching the nest 

 there was scarcely any perceptible difference. 



Squatarola helvetica (Linn.). 



We arrived at Alexievka on the 19th June, after a ten 

 days' voyage down the river from Ust Zylma. We had left 

 far behind us the thick forests of small spruce which crown 

 the heights behind Ust Zylma, and the older forests of pine 

 and spruce and larch at Habariki. We had glided past the 

 dense thickets of tail birch, lea\'ing the last of these behind 

 at Viski, and had entered upon the true delta, the flat willow- 

 covered islands of which had only a short time before been 

 three or four feet under the overflow of the great river. As 

 we approached Alexievka, we had seen afar off, with longing 

 eyes, the low outline of the skirts of the Great Zemelskaya 

 tundi'a upon the eastern bank of the river ; and we knew that 

 it stretched away eastward to the Ural Mountains, and north- 

 eastwards to the gates of the Kara Sea. We had landed on 

 the willow-covered islands here and there during our voyage 



