128 SIBERIA IN EUROPE. chap, xii 



and beginning to sing, it is an easy bird to see, and not 

 difficult to shoot. On its first arrival, it often warbles in an 

 undertone so low, that you fancy the sound must be muffled 

 by the thick tangle of branches in which you think the bird 

 is concealed, while all the time it is perched on high upon 

 the topmost spray of a young fir, this very conspicuousness 

 causing him to escape detection for the moment. His first 

 attempts at singing are harsh and grating, like the notes of 

 the sedge warbler, or the still harsher ones of the white- 

 throat ; these are followed by several variations in a louder 

 and rather more melodious tone, repeated over and over 

 again, somewhat in the fashion of a song-thrush. After this 

 you might fancy the little songster- was trying to mimic the 

 various alarm-notes of all the birds he can remember — the 

 " chiz-zit " of the wagtail, the " tip-tip-tip " of the black- 

 bird, and especially the " whit-whit " of the chaffinch. As 

 he improves in voice, he sings louder and longer, until at 

 last he almost approaches the nightingale in the richness of 

 the melody that he pours forth. Sometimes he will sing 

 as he flies upward, descending with expanded wings and tail, 

 to alight on the highest bough of some low tree, almost 

 exactly as the tree pipit does. When the females have 

 arrived, there comes at the end of his song the most metallic 

 notes I have ever heard a bird utter. It is a sort of " ting- 

 ting," resembling the sound produced by the hitting of a 

 suspended bar of steel with another piece of the same metal. 

 Our afternoon walk was more fruitful of result than had 

 been our morning's. I had followed for some time the shore 

 of the overflowing Petchora, when, after having bagged a 



