A SUMMER ON THE YENESEI 149 



lakes, and flocks of unmated birds were seen on the 

 Yenesei until the middle of July, when they went into 

 the tundra to moult. I often heard their fine, harsh 

 clamour, or watched them preening themselves on the 

 blue ice-floes, as I crossed the swamps by the light of 

 the midnight sun. He who named the long- tailed duck 

 Harelda glacialis knew not only what was due to 

 science, but also what was picturesque in nomenclature. 

 So it is with the golden-eye — Clangula glaucion, and 

 the petrel — Oceanites oceanicus. The actual meaning 

 of the names may be nothing to the ordinary man, but 

 they please the ear, just as the National Anthem, or 

 the "Marche Funebre" played on the organ, may by 

 their stateliness and dignity impress a man who properly 

 has no soul for music. Even if we did not understand 

 Latin, we could not call the little dipper Colymbus 

 glacialis, just as vice versa we could not recognise the 

 great northern diver merely as Cinclus aquaticus. He 

 who gave the red-necked phalarope its trivial name had 

 not such a fine idea of the value of sounds as the 

 ornithologist who first called it Phalaro'pushyperhoreus. 

 In one case the specific name falls flatly on the ear — it 

 is equally well suited to a new variety of chicken ; but 

 the other rolls off" the tongue grandly enough, with a 

 certain sonorousness befitting a being whose life is spent 

 in battling with wind and wave in desolate and solitary 

 places. 



I never saw the king- eider at Golchika, but at the 

 beginning of July, Prokopchuk brought in a couple — a 

 splendid drake and a duck. Prokopchuk had a story, 

 though whether of his own invention or that of the 



