234 



SIBERIA IN EUROPE. 



CHAP. XIX. 



was the single specimen of the species that we obtained on 

 our journey. I now hastened on to the sandhills. The mos- 

 quitoes had by this time forced me to wear my veil, but 

 when on reaching the hills I saw a number of small waders 

 running hither and hither, I threw it back ; still I could 

 detect nothing but ringed plovers. I shot one, to be certain 

 of my identification, and hoping also that the report would 

 rouse rarer game. A shore-lark in first plumage was the 

 only variety of bird that rose at the sound. I secured it. 

 Wandering on farther, I was still disappointed. Beds of 

 wild onion and large patches of purple vetch had replaced 

 the coarse grass. I returned on my footsteps to the edge of 

 the bay, and missed a shot at a swan ; a snowy owl also 

 flew past out of range. . The curlew sandpipers had disap- 



considered statement made by Dr. 

 Finsch that he had found the young 

 in down on the Yalmal peninsula was 

 afterwards contradicted by himself. 

 There can be little doubt that the 

 curlew sandpiper breeds in Arctic 

 Siberia, but the precise locality remains 

 a mystery. It occasionally winters on 

 the shores of the Mediterranean, and is 

 exceedingly common in South Africa, 

 from October to April. It is also found 

 at the same season of the year on the 

 coast of India, China, and the islands 

 of the Malay Archipelago. In America 

 it appears to be only an accidental 

 straggler to the west coast. It was 

 a great disappointment to us to obtain 

 no definite clue to its breeding haunts ; 

 but from the accounts we heard, con- 

 flicting and untrustworthy as these 



often were, we gathered that marshy 

 plains and swamps of great extent lie 

 along the courses of the numerous 

 rivers and small streams which flow 

 from the Pytkoff Mountains to the sea 

 to the north-eastward of Dvoinik. Of 

 this fair land of promise we were only 

 permitted to obtain a very distant and 

 unsatisfactory view, as on the only 

 occasion when wc might have seen it, 

 had the air been clear, from a height 

 upon the tundra to the north of the 

 inlet, a white mist lay along the dis- 

 tant hollows, completely concealing the 

 featui-es of the landscape. The curlew- 

 sandpiper does not always follow the 

 coast-line in its migrations. Bogdanoff 

 records that it is seen on the Volga 

 and on the Kama both in spring and 

 autumn. 



