VI.] BIRD-LIFE ON THE RIVER. 121 



before resuming our march, for at almost all these settlements cows 

 are kept. The milk is generally very rich, and is one of the few 

 luxuries the country affords the traveller, unless, indeed, the cows 

 should happen to have been feeding on the wild garlic. What 

 effect the diet of half-rotten fish on which the poor animals feed in 

 winter may have, I do not know^ We noticed, however, that many 

 of the birds we shot and preserved on the expedition smelt strongly 

 of decaying salmon. 



Durmg the land journey the actual number of species of liirds 

 we met with was but limited, although individuals of some kinds 

 were sufficiently abundant. The Capercailzie {Tetrao ixirvirostris, 

 Gray), though not unlike the European species with which Scotch 

 and Norwegian sportsmen are familiar, differs from it in several 

 particulars. It is markedly smaller in size, shows a strong tinge 

 of grey on the upper surface, and is especially characterised by the 

 tendency to white in the plumage. The feathers of the wing 

 coverts and those of the prolonged upper and under tail coverts 

 are broadly tipped with this colour, and the general appearance of 

 the bird is very handsome. The forest districts are poor in bird- 

 life ; the woodpeckers I have before described, small flocks of 

 buntings {E. rustica), bramblings, and two species of the genus 

 Parus were almost the only noticeable kmds. One bird, however, 

 which I have not yet mentioned, appeared tolerably common — 

 the sober-coloured, but graceful dark ouzel {Mcrula ohscura, Gmel.) 

 I met with it many months later, amid very different surroundings, 

 in the depths of a Bornean jungle. It is migratory in its habits, 

 nesting in Siberia and passing the winter in the Malay Islands. 



By the rivers there is more life. Many of the so-called sea- 

 birds haunt the streams for a considerable distance inland, and at 

 Stari-ostrog we found large flocks of a gull closely resembling our 

 own Kittiwake {Rissa tridadyla). A graceful tern {S. longipcnnis, 

 Nordm.) was almost equally numerous at the same place, but we 

 did not agaiu meet with it for some time, and on our return to 

 Petropaulovsky it had already departed for tlie warmer regions of 



