A SUMMER ON THE YENESEI 151 



Seebohm, that the former was much the commoner 

 of the two. The white-billed diver (Gavia adamsi), 

 which breeds on the eastern tundras, visits the Yenesei 

 occasionally during the spring migration. 



I had met with the black-throated diver in Scotland, 

 but there I never heard more of its language than an 

 uncouth shriek. But, on the Yenesei, I constantly heard 

 a beautiful modulated whistle, two or three times 

 repeated, as wild and as far reaching as the call of some 

 wading bird. In fact it seemed such an incongruous 

 sound to proceed from the " ga-garra's " grotesque body 

 that, although I frequently suspected the blackthroat, I 

 never really solved the mystery of its authorship until 

 one day when lying watching duck beside a lake in the 

 tundra, a pair of divers flew towards me, unsuspecting, 

 and pitched in the water about two hundred yards away. 

 They began to play about the tarn, chasing each other, 

 diving beneath the surface, and swimming side by side 

 along the shore. Frequently, with rigid necks and 

 tilted bills, they uttered this weird, melancholy whistle, 

 which was audible for a mile or more. I think it must 

 be the love-song of their kind. 



There was a small pool behind Sylkin's house, and 

 here a pair of red-throated divers hatched out two 

 young ones. Sylkin's boys caught one of the chicks 

 the same evening, and brought him to me. He was a 

 hideous little monster, whose scaly, sprawling limbs and 

 goggle eyes bore the saurian stamp that in his parents 

 was discreetly veiled with feathers. I had photographed 

 this diver in the Outer Hebrides during the previous 

 summer, and wanted a picture of the downy youngster 



