MR SEEB OHM'S DISCO VER Y 211 



and hawks pursuing them, arrived in forty-eight 

 hours after the first warmth ; the cuckoo sang all 

 day long ; and the Siberian forest became a para- 

 dise of beauty peopled with birds, and stocked with 

 last year's fruits, preserved by seven month's frost 

 and snow. But among all the migrating myriads, 

 not one of the species whose nest he sought passed 

 over the upper Petchora. Mr Seebohm and Mr 

 Harvie Brown, who had accompanied him, then 

 descended the river, and encamped on the tundra. 

 The tundra was, in fact, a moor, with here and there 

 a large flat bog and abundant lakes. It was covered 

 with moss, lichens, heath-like plants, dwarf birch, 

 and millions of acres of cloudberries and cranberries. 

 As far as the eye could reach, this region stretched 

 east and west, intersected by low ridges of tussocks, 

 like the rind of a melon. Here they found the nests 

 of three of the six species whose eggs were unknown. 

 The eggs of the grey plover were found in the first 

 day's ' birdnesting ' on the tundra, and the birds were 

 identified. These plovers, which feed in the Thames 

 marshes in autumn, thus fly to the most northern 

 corner of Europe to rear their young. Lower down 

 the river the eggs of Bewick's swan were also found 

 by a fisherman, and later, the eggs of the stint, on the 

 tundra itself. The knot and sanderling were not 

 found breeding on the tundra ; they go further north 



