450 Mr. H. L. Popham un the 



coining, so that we had not a day to wait for the arrival of 

 migrants. 



The season was a curious one : at first came a very early 

 dry spring, with the river breaking up exceptionally soon; 

 then followed a long spell of severe cold. In consequence, 

 some of the birds which bred during the first warm weather 

 were very early, while those that did not do so were very late ; 

 thus before we left Yeniseisk on June 1.2th to go north, the 

 leafage was so far advanced that it was impossible to see a 

 small Warbler ; whereas on reaching lat. G6° N. a week 

 later, the willows were only just bursting their buds ; while 

 on June 27th ice was still coming down the Doodinka River, 

 and the larch-trees showed no signs oE turning green. This 

 delay of summer prolonged the nesting-season in the far 

 north, so that we were still blowing fresh eggs (on July 16th) 

 when in other years all sucli collecting was over; but this 

 made us too early during our passage down the river for 

 most of the interesting birds, such as Little Buntings and 

 the like. The advantage, however, whicii we might have 

 derived from this late summer was almost entirely lost by a 

 long delay of twelve days at the Brekhoffski Islands, Here 

 we waited for a day considered fine enough to proceed to 

 Gok'hika, whence we had planned a boat expedition to the 

 islands below ; and as we did not reach Golchika till July ]6th, 

 it would have been useless to go farther at so late a date : 

 thus the main object of our journey had to be abandoned. 



The tundra was drier than I had ever seen it, and the 

 moscpiitoes perhaps not quite so troublesome. 



We took a return-ticket on the s.s. ' Yenisei/ a trading- 

 steamer belonging to Messrs. Kitmanof & Co., and were 

 therefore dependent on the movements, or rather stoppages, 

 of that vessel. 



I have been able in several instances to remove the brackets 

 which I employed in my former list (Ibis, 1898, pp. 489-520) in 

 the case of those species observed by Dr. Theel and Seebohm 

 but not by myself; but we were not very fortunate in finding- 

 new varieties of eggs, so that few asterisks have been added. 



I am again indebted to Mr. Dresser for his kindness in 

 looking over the skins which we collected. 



