34 A SUMMER ON THE YENESEI 



like a blackbird who dives into the laurels when you 

 surprise him on the shrubbery path. To an amateur in 

 bird-watching, it is a constant interest and pleasure to 

 notice among the birds of another country the little 

 actions and ways that he has learned to know so well in 

 their kindred in Britain. 



In the scrub birch wood at the back of the village, 

 I shot a pine grosbeak. He was like a flash of red sun- 

 shine as he flew through the wood, and when I had him 

 in my hand, I was sorry, because sunshine is scarce. I 

 wonder why a bird is beautiful even when it is dead. 

 A dead beast is always ugly and generally repulsive. 

 White as pearls are his teeth, was said of the dead dog 

 in the legend, and it was all that even perfect Com- 

 passion could say. I once saw a dead fox who looked 

 beautiful, but then he was curled up as if in life with 

 the sunshine on his ruddy pelt, and all the hateful con- 

 sequences of death were hidden. But a bird's dead 

 body keeps some grace, and why this should be so I do 

 not know, for, when in life, it is so much the incarnation 

 of all that is joyous and vital that symbolically, if not 

 actually, it seems as if it ought to be doubly repellent 

 in death. 



Close to this spot I found a wood sandpiper brood- 

 ing over three fresh eggs in an old fieldfare's nest, built 

 in a low spruce tree. In Europe the wood sandpiper 

 breeds in a hollow in the ground ; and it was Mr. H. L. 

 Popham who first pointed out that on the Yenesei, in four 

 cases out of five, the site chosen was the deserted nest 

 of some other bird. The sandpiper sat so closely that 

 he almost allowed himself to be pushed off" the nest, and 



