142 



SIBERIA IN EUROPE. 



CHAP. XIII. 



us met with before. The alighting of a small party of five, 

 on an alder bush, surprised us. We secured a male, but 

 the remainder disappeared among some alders and willows 

 growing on an impassable piece of flooded land close to the 

 Petchora, which was also full of floating driftwood. So, 

 unfortunately, we saw them no more. 



We noticed a few v^hite wagtails, principally near the 

 village. 



Fieldfares were numerous, sometimes in flocks, generally 

 in pairs. They scarcely seemed to have yet begun to breed 

 in earnest. We had two nests brought us, however, each 

 containing one egg. We found plenty of old isolated nests, 

 but no traces of colonies. The fieldfares were singing far 

 more in the woods about Habariki than I had heard them 

 doing during the breeding season in Norway. 



The redwing was decidedly commoner than the fieldfare, 

 and its rich wild notes constantly resounded in all parts of 

 the forest. Its usually plaintive whistle was only occasionally 

 heard, the note which it more frequently uttered resembled 

 rather that of a song thrush, but very short. We shot one, to 

 make sure that it was a bird of no other species. Its low 

 warble often came following the notes just mentioned ; but 

 sometimes it came without the preliminary note, and once we 

 heard it utter a loose alarm cry like that of the fieldfare. 

 It is evidently an earlier breeder than the latter bird. We 

 got four or five of its nests, containing four eggs each ; one 



at high elevations in Cashmere and 

 near Lake Baikal, wintering in Beloo- 

 chistan, India, and China. In the valley 



of the Petchora we found it breeding 

 from latitude 66 to latitude 68. 



