86 Hall, The Eastern Palcparctica and Australia. [,sf'ckt. 



revolution. Egg-shells of the many Waders are everywhere upon 

 the mosses, and young in thousands are still as death itself in 

 hiding. Austraha does not know these living birds in beautiful 

 colours of black and gold, with variations. When they get to us 

 they are grey, for winter wear. My luck did not seem good to have 

 spent five months in getting here, to be able to stay only two 

 hours, and spend five months in getting back. The birds would 

 be there before us. Nature in those two hours gave us a com- 

 pensation in a magnificent mirage, showing the whole delta and some 

 outside islands upon which Bewick's White Swan was nesting. 

 It showed us the Polar Sea, and impressed us with gratitude. 

 It was a great uplifting, and I felt as a guest in the birthplace of 

 the Australian migratory birds in their mile upon mile of the 

 greatest moss plain in the world, and its mile upon mile of 

 feathered life. 



The country here is completely speckled with a white-headed 

 seeding grass, and is sectioned into great squares of mosses, with 

 deep, narrow, natural water moats, showing frozen bottoms. 

 The bird cliffs outside the river — forbidden to us — contained quite 

 another type of birds — Kittiwake Gulls — any one of which, at 

 that moment of the mirage, might have been protecting fifty 

 young under the law of mutual aid. Falcons were doubtless 

 making their incessant raids in defiance of the watchful Barge 

 and attacking Oyster-catcher. In these delta islands the timid 

 Turnstones [Strepsilas) undertake to keep guard for the common- 

 weal of timid Dottrels. It was in this delta that Baron 

 Nordenskjold observed the Eider drake with its many Ducks 

 sitting on a single nest. The boat in which we were travelling 

 was the s.s. Lena, at one time consort to the memorable voyage 

 of his ship, the Vega. On this occasion we were taking stores 

 to Baron Toll's Janet part}', never again heard of, excepting the 

 remnant of sailors who starved in this delta before the arrival 

 of the Australian birds. 



The Palsearctic Region has approximately thirty-five species 

 of Limicoline birds annually migrating to Australia from the 

 eastern polar area, and approximately two hundred species 

 migrating to Africa. The latter are mostly Passerine. 



The Taimyr Peninsula is the European and Western Asiatic 

 zoological vacuum, while the delta of the Lena is similar for 

 Australian and Eastern Asiatic birds. The most of the birds 

 leave before the winter sets in. They almost altogether go south. 

 Exceptions go north, as with the Colymhidce or Divers. They 

 are nesting up the rivers of the Arctic, and later get to the 

 Frozen Sea. I met one in a swamp a few dog-versts in. The 

 Colymbidce include the Grebes of Australia, these being the only 

 two genera of the family. 



When I arrived in Siberia it was between the cold seasons, not 

 intending to be in many of the terrible snow-storms that sweep 

 over the northern portions of Eurasia at the close of winter. I 

 hoped to get out before the heavy snow-falls in August, which 



