PETCHORA 281 



At Habarika we met with very few birds indeed. An 

 Eagle, which was too far off for identification, flew over- 

 head yesterday. Redpolls were common close to the 

 village, and, as usual, Magpies and Hooded Crows. Two 

 Marsh Tits flew into a larch close to us this morning, but 

 we did not get a shot. A few Snow Buntings were seen, 

 but we did not shoot any at Habarika. No sparrows 

 were observed. 



Coming home in the afternoon to-day we shot two 

 Siberian Jays, and Seebohm shot nine Snow Buntings at 

 a shot. On dissection the Jays were found to be both 

 females with quite small eggs in the ovary, and no 

 appearance of their having been engaged in incubation. 

 These Jays are rather puzzling. They are known to 

 breed very early, yet the ovaries appear to be in a very 

 backward state, and this is the last day of April. 



The Snow Buntings have of late made little progress 

 in attaining their full summer plumage, and we have only 

 one dated 20th April which has a perfectly white head. 

 The plumage of the $ and $ seem to run into one 

 another, but we must get a larger series of careful ly- 

 sexed examples before deciding to what extent this 

 appears. 



I may here mention that on our return to-day from 

 Habarika to Ust Zylma as also on our journey in the 

 reverse direction on the 29th we again had several oppor- 

 tunities of seeing Snow Buntings perch on trees. 



We left Habarika about 1 p.m., and got back to Ust 

 Zylma in about four and a half hours. A considerable 

 thaw had set in, which made the road rather heavy. 



Piottuch with M. Znaminsky's assistance has hired 

 a capital boat, deck-house and fittings complete, for 25 

 roubles, of which 15 roubles is to be paid in advance and 

 the remainder on our return from the delta. This is just 

 about three times as much as we were told at Archangel 



