ARRIVAL OF THE BIRDS. 295 



large flocks of almost every kind of fowl. It would 

 be too long" to attempt anything more than a de- 

 scription of them in the most general terms: there 

 were wagtails, willow warblers, chiffchaffs, thrushes, 

 ouzels, bramblings, white-fronted geese, cuckoos, 

 snipe, plovers, pipits, bullfinches, besides a vast variety 

 of water-fowl and sea birds of every description. * 



" The revolution in the ice (says Mr. Seebohm) took place 

 to the accompaniment of a perfect babel of birds. Above our 

 heads we continually heard the 'gag-gag' of geese and the 

 harsh bark of swans, as flock after flock hurried past us to 

 the Tundra. Where there was a little water between the ice 

 floes, crowds of gulls were fishing; while ever and anon the 

 weird cries of the black-throated and red-throated divers came 

 from the creek; flocks of wild ducks also passed, and along 

 the shore, small birds flitted from bush to bush." f 



These brief extracts culled from the thoughtful work 

 of Mr. Seebohm, present to the mind's eye a wonder- 

 ful picture of the great spring migration in the 

 Yenesay region, even had it stood alone: but it must 

 be remembered that we are here recording merely 

 the experiences of a single man stationed at a single 

 point in the immensity of these great northern 

 solitudes; and that the same process is simultaneously 

 going on almost everywhere throughout the wide 

 expanse of each of the great continents of the 

 northern hemisphere; though it may be that the 

 fly-lines along the courses of great rivers may be 

 more largely used by birds than other places still 

 the flights that may frequently be seen going across 



* Siberia in Asia : a Visit to the Valley of the Yenesay in East 

 Siberia, with a description of the Natural History, migration of birds, etc., 

 by Henry Seebohm, 1882, pp. 102 in. 



f Ibid., pp. 96, 97. 



