478 Letters, Announcements, 8^c. 



arrival of large flocks of those Sparrows of the north, the 

 ' Choochkies ' {Phaleris microceros) , is most cheerful and 

 interesting. Those plump little Auks are bright, fearless, 

 vivacious birds, with bodies round and fat. They come 

 usually in chatteriug flocks on, or immediately after, the 1st 

 of May, and are caught by the people with hand-scoops or 

 dip-nets to any number that may be required for the day^s 

 consumption, their tiny rotund forms making pies of rare 

 savory virtue, and being also baked and roasted and stewed 

 in every conceivable shape by the Russian cooks — indeed 

 they are equal to the Reed-birds of the South. These welcome 

 visitors are succeeded, d,bout the 20th of July, by large 

 flocks of fat red-legged Turnstones, Strepsilas interpres, 

 which come in suddenly from the west or north, where they 

 have been breeding, and stop on the island for a month or 

 six weeks, as the case may be, to feed luxuriantly upon the 

 flesh-flies, which we have just noticed, and their eggs. Those 

 handsome birds go in among the seals, familiarly chasing the 

 flies, gnats, &c. They are followed, as they leave in Sep- 

 tember, by several species of Jack -Snipe and a Plover, Tringa 

 and Charadrius ; these, however, soon depart, as early as the 

 end of October and the beginning of November, and then 

 winter fairly closes in upon the islands. The loud, roaring, 

 incessant seal-din, together with screams and darkening 

 flights of innumerable water-fowl, are replaced in turn again 

 by absolute silence, marking out, as it were, in lines of sharp 

 and vivid contrast, summer's life and winter's death." 



The Migration of the Little Bustard. — " Whilst staying at 

 the next station after the mud volcanoes, I was lucky enough 

 to witness a passage of the ' Strepita,' or Lesser Bustard 

 [Otis tdrax). These magnificent birds Avere in millions all 

 over the steppe. The ground was grey with them ; the air 

 full of their cries, the sky alive with the movement of their 

 wings. With them were a few small flocks of another bird, 

 which I thought I recognized as the Golden Plover ; but of 

 this I am by no means sure. So much struck was I by the 

 strange sight which this enormous passage presented, that I 



