CHAP. V. 



SNOW-SHOES. 



49 



preventing effectually any sliding backwards. The great 

 difficulty with which we had to contend at first was to avoid 

 treading on our own toes, but with a little practice we learnt 

 to keep our shoes parallel. In going down hill we had to 

 be careful lest our speed should increase to the point where 

 we lost the control of our centres of gravity. 



Every day we sallied out with our guns and snow-shoes in 

 search of birds, but during the first week or so it was some- 

 what monotonous work, and we soon began to tire of winter. 

 There were very few birds to be seen. In the village the 

 hooded crow,* the magpie, and the tree-sparrow were common, 

 aud now and then we saw a raven. We took it for granted 

 that these birds had been at Ust-Zylma all the winter. The 

 peasants brought us frequently capercailzie and hazel grouse, 

 which they shot with their rifles and offered us at twenty 

 kopecks (about sevenpence) each fur the capercailzie, and 

 the same sum per brace for the hazel grouse. These birds 

 are probably all residents, though Father Inokentia told us 

 that the hooded crow was a migratory bird at Pustorzersk, 

 arriving there about the 10th of May. 



* The hooded crow (Corvus comix, 

 Linn.) breeds in Scotland, and is a 

 winter visitant to England. The whole 

 of Eastern Europe, including Denmark, 

 Scandinavia, and Russia, and the whole 

 of Western Siberia, including North 

 Turkestan, eastwards as far as the 

 watershed between the Obb and the 

 Yenesay, may be described as a vast 

 colony of hooded crows, with a few 

 outlying settlements in Scotland, Italy, 

 Greece, Palestine and Egypt. In other 



parts of Europe and North Africa it 

 appears only as a winter visitant from 

 the extreme north. Wherever the 

 breeding range of this species adjoins 

 that of the carrion crow, as, for in- 

 stance, in Scotland, the valley of the 

 Elbe, Turkestan, ^and the valley of the 

 Yenesay, the two species appear freely 

 to interbreed. In the valley of the 

 Petchora we found it to be a resident 

 in latitude 65£°, and a summer visitor 

 in latitudes 67° and 68°. 



E 



