46 A SUMMER ON THE YENESEI 



writhing and striking like a snake in his hands. Be- 

 sides the divers, geese were on the move, and flocks 

 continually flew gag-gaggling overhead. But all these 

 I hoped to meet again farther north, and the small birds 

 of the taiga were more appealing at that time. Of 

 these the little bunting was the most in evidence, and 

 this was the most northerly spot at which I observed this 

 elegant and charming species. On the whole, the buntings 

 are a homely family, well tricked out perhaps, but, all the 

 same, a little clumsy of build and a little scanty of song. 

 There are, however, two over whom I could find it in me 

 to become poetical. One is the trim reed-sparrow of 

 our Berkshire osier beds, and the other is the little 

 bunting under the Yenesei cedars. The birds had not 

 yet begun to breed, but males and females were keeping 

 company together in little parties consisting of two and 

 three couples in the forest where the undergrowth was 

 thickest, and where one might have only a glimpse of 

 their dainty mottled plumage through a lattice of twigs. 

 The song, unlike most bunting music, is a distinctive and 

 pleasant little warble, and the manner of its delivery 

 is not like that of most buntings. The corn-bunting 

 and the yellow-hammer, for instance — their Euro- 

 pean cogeners — make a serious business of song, and 

 will not interrupt it either for food or for battle. 

 But the little bunting, like the warblers, weaves his 

 music into his common round, until it seems as 

 spontaneous as the rustle of the wind in the leaves 

 overhead. 



That afternoon the silence of the taiga was more 

 absolute than anything that I have ever known. It was 



