36 A SUMMER ON THE YENESEI 



make a skin of the mangled corpse that he produced 

 for my inspection, but it was quite recognisable enough 

 for identification. Shortly afterwards, while waiting 

 for the gangway to be raised, I heard another bird sing- 

 ing on a larch tree close to the river bank. The song, 

 what there is of it, is sweet and very characteristic of 

 the thrush family ; but as it consists only of a few notes 

 and then a semibreve rest, it is not to be compared with 

 that of our own throstle. 



The following morning, 17th June, I turned out at 

 7.30 a.m., and found that we were at anchor a couple 

 of versts south of the river Kureika. This must always 

 be one of the most interesting parts of the river to the 

 ornithologist, associated as it is with Seebohm's account 

 of his explorations in 1877, and I went ashore at once 

 with Vassilli. 



The shore was littered with whitening branches, the 

 dead bones of the forest flung hither and thither by 

 the spring floods. A pair of ringed plovers — those 

 cheerful cosmopolitans — had staked their claim to a 

 patch of the beach, and some sandpipers had already 

 prepared their nest in the sand. There were many 

 cuckoos flying about the river bank. The Kureika was 

 the most northerly point at which I saw these birds, 

 and they puzzled me a good deal. There were, so it 

 seemed, two distinct kinds. One, when on the wing, 

 appeared to be identical with our common cuckoo 

 (Cuculus canorus). The other, which was of about the 

 same size, was constantly seen in company with the 

 grey bird, but it had plumage which was as dark as 

 that of a nightjar. These Yenesei cuckoos had two 



