150 A SUMMER ON THE YENESEI 



natives, I do not know, that the " ga-ga," as he called 

 it, is in some sense a bird of distinction ; and that if a 

 bird of prey harries it in the nesting season, the ducks 

 of other species will unite to drive the foe away. It is 

 curious how we human folk thus allow legend and 

 sentiment to gather round certain birds. Sometimes 

 it is by association, as round our own redbreast and 

 barn -swallow ; sometimes it is by their utility, as round 

 the eider-ducks of Iceland ; sometimes, as in the case 

 of the " ga-ga," we can trace it to none of these things. 



No bird has gathered such a wealth of myth around 

 its life-story as the swan. From the tragedy of the 

 children of Lir to the coming of Lohengrin, its legends 

 are so many and so beautiful that it was scarcely sur- 

 prising to find the same sentiment on the Yenesei. The 

 wild swan does not nest at Golchika, although it is found 

 at the Sopochnaya, and the natives there hold it in high 

 esteem. Indeed, they invest it with the same qualities 

 with which the people of the south used to endow the 

 pelican. The swan is their personification of maternity. 

 The goose, they say, is a bad mother. When the young 

 foxes go into the tundra to steal her eggs, she will fly 

 screaming away ; but the swan will face the robbers, 

 and kill anyone who touches her nest. She will be 

 slain herself, rather than desert her brood. 



The divers were the latest birds to breed at Golchika, 

 for they were obliged to wait until the ice on the lakes 

 thawed, and this did not happen until after the snow 

 melted. I took fresh eggs on 12th July. Both the red- 

 and black-throated species were found, but my experience 

 agrees with that of Mr, Popham, as against that of 



