122 A SUMMER ON THE YENESEI 



they press northwards in the wake of the thaw, where- 

 ever they can find sufficient uncovered ground to afford 

 them food and drink. Sometimes, in their passion to 

 reach their breeding-grounds, they overshoot the edge 

 of the icy zone, and, landing in a country where an 

 arctic winter still prevails, they are obliged to return 

 southwards again — if they are able — and attend in due 

 course the advance of spring. If the season, for some 

 cause or other, is a late one, this bird host — this " aery 

 caravan " — is held up at the edge of the receding ice 

 cap and delayed, sometimes for days together. This 

 sometimes happens during migration in temperate 

 climates, but there the birds soon pass on, for the snow 

 seldom lies so deeply that no feeding-grounds are 

 uncovered. But on the Yenesei a bird may reach a 

 certain spot and summer there quite comfortably, while 

 a hundred miles farther north the country may not 

 support bird life at all. While she lingers there, the 

 physical need to breed may overtake her before the 

 winter has retreated sufficiently to allow her to reach 

 her usual haunts, and compels her to make her nest 

 and rear her brood where she can. Probably this is the 

 reason why I found the curlew-sandpiper not uncommon 

 near Golchika, while Messrs. Popham and Seebohm did 

 not see it there at all. I have no information whether 

 it was an early or a late season when these observers 

 visited the Yenesei, but the summer of 1914 was both 

 a cold and a late one. The ice broke up, and there 

 were signs that it would be an early spring, but before 

 the snow melted, the weather changed, and the east 

 wind brought up blizzards from the Taimyr. The 



