CHAP. xiv. PUSTAZURSK. 169 



replaced the green wagtail, and had become quite a common 

 bird. Occasionally we -still saw the white wagtail. At one 

 island we shot a pair of small spotted woodpeckers, which must 

 have found the alder and willow trunks very small for their 

 nests. I found also two fieldfares' nests, one with four, the 

 other with six eggs. Late in the evening we came upon a 

 large flock of great snipe, and in the course of half an hour 

 we had shot ten. They were flying about in companies of 

 about six, continually alighting on the ground, where the 

 sound of their feeding was often heard. One or two 

 common snipe were also hovering overhead and frequently 

 drumming. On one island we saw signs that the breaking 

 up of the Petchora did not take place so silently in the 

 delta as it had done at Ust-Zylma. On the flat shore we 

 discovered a small range of miniature mountains, some 

 eighteen to twenty feet high. We took them at first, from 

 a distance, to be low sandhills, but on nearer approach found 

 them to be a pile of dirty blocks of ice. 



We arrived at Pustazursk at midnight on June 18tb, and 

 spent the night shooting. The country was a sort of rolling 

 prairie, rising here and there, into dry moorland, on which 

 grew birches, junipers, and a few pines. The lower land 

 remained a willow swamp. Among the sandhills we found 

 a couple of terns' nests, and a nest of the Terek sandpiper. 

 Plenty of Temminck's stints were about, but we failed to find 

 any nests. We shot a couple of sand-martins preparing to 

 build. In a walk that I took on the dry moorland, I 

 stalked a couple of willow-grouse, sitting upon a birch-tree, 

 very conspicuous objects for a mile around. I also rose a 



