146 A SUMMER ON THE YENESEI 



dandy with a canary and puce gorget — a wheatear or 

 two, and scores of ringed plovers. Lastly, on the 

 tundra itself, there were golden plover, Lapland 

 buntings, curlew-sandpipers, and the dotterel. The 

 latter, although of less interest than most of the waders 

 of the neighbourhood, charmed me as much as any of 

 them. She is such a gentle, innocent little bird, and 

 both her tameness and her trim, sober-hued plumage 

 are so engaging. I found several nests, and also two 

 or three pallid, fluffy babies, who already wore the first 

 suggestions of the tangerine-coloured vests that would 

 be theirs by and by. Later, the dotterels gathered 

 into little family parties, or "trips" as the old English 

 fowlers called them, but all through June coveys of 

 unmated birds haunted the tops of the hills. Some- 

 times, as you stumbled over the rough, mossy ground, 

 you would hear a little tinkle of notes, like falling drops 

 of sound, and half a dozen grass tussocks (so it seemed) 

 sprang into a flock of timid, throbbing birds, who 

 skimmed away over the tundra and pitched into in- 

 visibility again a little farther on. 



I was once lying behind a hillock, watching an old 

 dotterel with three young ones, who were already strong 

 upon the wing. Presently a rough -legged buzzard 

 circled overhead. I think that he was really on the 

 look out for lemmings, not for dotterel, but the mother 

 bird took it for granted that he had designs upon her 

 brood. With a soft chirrr, the three fledglings took 

 wing, for they were well able to take care of themselves ; 

 but the plucky little mother (who, like many human 

 mothers, could not understand that her babies bad out- 



