OUR FIRST LANDINGS 41 



and all about in parties varying in number from a single 

 pair to perhaps nine or a dozen together. I shall devote 

 later on in this book a separate chapter to the birds of 

 Kolguev. 



This book will doubtless fall into the hands of many a 

 better ornithologist than myself. But some of my 

 readers who have not had much time or inclination to 

 follow the birds, may like, I think, to have a tip or two, 

 which my ornithologist readers will skip, about each bird 

 as we come to it. This, I hope, will make the book 

 more generally interesting. 



The great charm of Arctic natural history lies in its 

 alliances with our own. Go right away into the tropics 

 and you go to another world — wonderful, dazzling but 

 strange. Those birds are here in our aviaries, those 

 flowers we have under glass. But even high up in the 

 circumpolar area you have many of our own old friends 

 among the flowers, dwarfed maybe, stunted by the cold, 

 but still the same ; or else just little cousins not very far 

 removed. 



And so too in the Arctic, north of Europe, nearly all 

 are birds we call British. By this we mean only that 

 they have all been recorded here at some time or other. 

 Many, as the Tromso fieldfare, stay with us all the 

 winter, and then go away to nest. Some only stop with 

 us a little while in spring and autumn — just in passing 

 through to higher lands. 



And the little stint is one of these. You may see 



