A SUMMER ON THE YENESEI 159 



At Golchika, where all birds began to nest on the 

 same date, all eggs of the same species hatched out on 

 the same day. Thus you had Little Stint Day, when every 

 marsh and streamside buzzed with little stints ; Lapland 

 Bunting Day, when the tundra was full of Lapland 

 buntings, and so on. Red-throated Pipit Day came last 

 of all, for these were the latest of all the birds to breed. 

 They waited for the mosquitoes. The red-throated pipit 

 was the only bird on the tundra that was a songster. 

 He was of the blood royal of the skylark, and it was 

 fine to watch his glorious parachute from the upper air 

 to the accompaniment of a rain of melody. Like the 

 skylarks, these pipits were very quarrelsome. Each 

 pair occupied a certain patch of ground — generally a 

 shallow glen where a stream trickled down from the 

 tundra — and guarded it jealously. I have seen a bird 

 chase away a pair of ruffs of four times his own size, and 

 they constantly bickered with the shorelarks when the 

 latter strayed down from the hilltops. 



The red-throated pipits fed their young for some 

 time after they left the nest. I have a note that I saw 

 a female with a bill full of mosquitoes on 7th August, 

 long after all other birds except the geese and divers 

 were able to shift for themselves. It seemed as if they 

 fed their fledglings almost up to the day of the return 

 migration, for about 15th August they all disappeared, 

 together with the mosquitoes. 



It was not easy to obtain information about the 

 birds from the natives, partly owing to my ignorance 

 of the language, and partly because they themselves 

 divided all birds into two classes : those that could be 



