1 68 



SIBERIA IN EUROPE. 



CHAP. XIV. 



body. I shot five ; they were the first we had yet secured ; 

 and later in the day we brought down four more. My com- 

 panion meanwhile was exploring another island, where he fell 

 in with a flock of ruffs at their " lecking " place. He shot 

 two. Geese were becoming more and more plentiful ; in one 

 instance we marked a flock of fifty at least. Swans often 

 passed us by twos and threes. The sandpipers, the Terek, 

 and Temminck's were as common as ever. We watched 

 one of the latter to its nest, shot it, and secured the four 

 eggs. Early next morning I brought down a skylark ; the 

 second only that we had seen; I also shot a blue-throat, 

 which had by this time grown very rare. The commonest 

 warbler, abounding in some places, was the sed ge- warbler ; 

 next to it was the willow-warbler. Now and then also we heard 

 the redwing, and generally where we stopped there would 

 greet us the song of the new pipit pouring down from the 

 sky. The bird would remain up in the air for a long time, 

 then fly down and alight in the middle of a dense willow 

 swamp, rendering it impossible for us to secure another 

 specimen. A red-throated pipit that my companion shot 

 out of a tree, furnished us with the best possible evidence 

 that this species is much more arboreal in its habits than the 

 meadow pipit. The yellow-headed wagtail had now entirely 



the limit of forest growth, being rarely 

 found south of the Arctic Circle at that 

 season except at high elevations. In 

 winter it is found in various parts of 

 Southern Europe, and occasionally in 

 North Africa. Eastwards it winters 

 in Persia, Southern Turkestan, occa- 



sionally wandering into India, and 

 being more abundant in South China 

 and the islands of the Malay Archi- 

 pelago. In the western hemisphere its 

 winter range extends as far south as 

 Central America. 



