192 A SUMMER ON THE YENESEI 



light-breasted form of the species, as did all the other 

 Richardson's skuas that I saw on the Yenesei. It is 

 probably the Eastern form of the race. Meanwhile 

 Vassilli went on to the higher tundra, and flushed a 

 peregrine falcon from an eyrie at the top of a steep, 

 grassy mound. The nest contained three eggs, which 

 all were hopelessly addled, and were so discoloured by 

 lying in the nest that it seemed as if the bird must 

 have incubated them for weeks. Vassilli tried to shoot 

 her as she swooped overhead, but she was too quick for 

 him, and kept out of shot, though her cries pursued us 

 a long way up the river. Half a mile farther on, we 

 picked up Sylkin and the kettle. There was no fuel 

 except the green willow twigs around, but Vassilli, 

 who, like a true Siberiak, could make a fire out of 

 nothing, produced a slip of wood from the bottom of 

 the canoe, and soon made a blaze which looked cheerful 

 enough, for the evening was dull and grey, and the 

 wind was uncommonly cold. Before us, the river, 

 broken up by shoals and sandspits, meandered away 

 into the tundra ; and on each side, the wide, flat plain 

 stretched on, so it seemed, into infinity. A curious 

 restlessness always seized me when I watched that 

 immense horizon. Not to speak of its own mysterious 

 lure, a whole ornithological wonderland lay behind it ; 

 but the tundra is one of the most inaccessible of hunt- 

 ing-grounds in the world, and it will be many years 

 before the wonderful bird life that must exist in the 

 secret river valleys and mountains of the Taimyr is 

 thoroughly investigated. 



Sylkin roused me from a brown study by a question 



