CHAP. xiv. 



GOSHAWK. 



161 



little creek. A steady rain began to fall, which continued 

 all the following day; we just managed to creep down to 

 the river Yorsa, where again we pulled up en route. We 

 saw very few birds, but in the evening we got on shore ; and 

 a turn in the rain was not without result. We seemed 

 entangled in a network of willow swamps, lakes, and Jcourias 

 running out of the winding Yorsa. Here and there rose 

 a few taller willows and birches. After a while we came 

 upon a little house, the abode of the hay-cutters in autumn, 

 which our boatmen were now glad to make use of for the 

 night ; all around it were long straggling meadows, upon 

 which the grass was just beginning to come up. My com- 

 panion shot a second yellow-headed wagtail, a male; he 

 saw the female, but lost her. He also saw a small owl, pro- 

 bably Tengmalm's owl. I secured a fine male goshawk,* 

 the only one we identified on our journey. It was in a 

 thick alder-bush when I disturbed it, in the act of de- 

 vouring a female widgeon. In the same place I shot a 

 short-eared owl. Reed-buntings abounded. I took a nest 

 containing four eggs; it was built inside an old fieldfare's 

 nest, and was nine feet from the ground, in a willow- tree. 

 This is another example of the manner in which birds 

 accommodate themselves to the circumstances of a flooded 

 country. We found the little bunting very common, and 



* The goshawk (Astur palumbarius, 

 Linn.) is only found in the British 

 Islands as a rare straggler. It breeds 

 in most of the hilly and wooded dis- 

 tricts of Europe, and winters on both 

 shores of the basin of the Mediterranean. 



Eastwards it breeds as far south as the 

 Himalayas and North China, occasion- 

 ally straggling into Central India and 

 South China during winter. In the 

 valley of the Petchora we did net meet 

 with it north of the Arctic Circle. 



