MIGRATION OF WILD-FOWL. DOLOX-NOR. loi 



the day, and the thermometer registered 59° Fahr. 

 in the shade. The Peiho was free of ice, and flocks 

 of wild duck {Anas riitila, A. boschas) and merganser 

 {Mergns merganser and M. serrator") could be seen. 

 These birds and other varieties of waterfowl and 

 wading-birds make their appearance here in numer- 

 ous flocks in the first half of the month, not only in 

 the environs of Peking, but even near Kalgan where 

 the climate is sensibly colder. Not venturing to 

 continue their flight to the north where the breath of 

 spring has not yet made itself felt, they keep to the 

 flooded fields, which at this season are irrigated by 

 the agricultural Chinese. One fine clear mornino- 



о о 



the impatient flocks essay a flight over the high 

 lands, but if met by cold or bad weather they again 

 return to the warm plains, where day by day their 

 numbers increase, till at length the expected hour 

 arrives ; the deserts of Mongolia are slightly warmed, 

 the ice-bound soil of Siberia has begun to thaw, and 

 flock after flock hasten to leave their confined 

 quarters in a foreign land and wing their way to- 

 wards their haunts in the distant north. 



Beyond Ku-peh-kau in the direction of Dolon- 

 nor the mountains form a belt 100 miles in width, 

 composed of a number of parallel chains running 

 east and west, of no great elevation,^ yet often 



' There are no very remarkable peaks, and the snowy PeJi-cJia, 

 mentioned by the missionaries Gerbillon and Verbiest as 15,000 feet 

 high, and by Ritter following them, is certainly not here. The state- 

 ment of its existence was, however, contradicted by Л1М. Vassilicff and 

 Semenoff as early as 1856. See the Russian edition of Ritter's ' Erd- 

 kundc von Asien,' translated by SemcnolT, i. 292-295. 



