52 A SUMMER ON THE YENESEI 



have been pronounced to be those of Carduelis linota, but 

 Mr. Popham obtained specimens of C. h. exilipes also. 

 Besides warblers and redpolls, the willows contained 

 yellow-headed wagtails, red-necked phalaropes, and 

 Lapland buntings. I also saw a dusky ousel and a 

 great snipe, and shot a long-tailed duck — one of a couple, 

 who were preening themselves on a cake of ice in 

 the lake. Four red-throated divers were swimming in 

 Indian file down the river, and ringed plovers were as 

 common as usual. 



Although the ice had not long broken up on the 

 river, and blocks as big as cottages were piled up on the 

 bank, fishing had already begun. There were three or 

 four Yurak chooms on the foreshore, and as I returned 

 to the steamer, I paused to watch how the natives 

 hauled a good catch on to the sand. 



The Yenesei fisheries are yearly becoming more 

 valuable, as more regular steamboat communication is 

 established on the river. In 1908, there were two 

 thousand men fishing on the Lower Yenesei, and 

 188,000 pouds, or three thousand tons, of fish were 

 caught. The output is probably still greater nowa- 

 days, although no exact figures have been published, 

 but the trade might be enormously developed if it was 

 properly organised. As it is, the fish is bought from 

 the fishermen, both native and Siberian, by merchants 

 who sell it again in Yenesiesk, and in spite of the cost 

 of freight, etc., they make a very good profit. For 

 instance, the price of omul per poud at the fisheries is 

 about one rouble and a half, but the same fish is sold in 

 Yenesiesk at three to five roubles. The fishermen are 



