198 A SUMMER ON THE YENESEl 



levelled gun, whose report threatened to sound the 

 knell, both of the plover and of the chance of finding 

 the nest. Luckily the shot did not take effect, for it 

 was Vassilli's rule never to fire unless the bird was at 

 least a hundred yards away ; and before he could reload, 

 I said what I thought so loudly that both he and the 

 plovers fled over the hill. After such a shock to her 

 nerves it seemed hopeless to expect the bird to return 

 for some time, even if she ventured back at all ; so, 

 whistling to Sylkin, I walked on up the river to the 

 lakes. 



The actual river-bank here was of sand, overgrown 

 with close, springy grass and golden moss. The whole 

 appearance of the place was so much like that of a 

 typical English warren that one quite expected to see 

 rabbits popping in and out of their burrows. On the 

 other side of the sandbank lay a tract of deep green 

 marsh studded with small meres, and beyond the marsh, 

 the ground sloped gradually up to the higher tundra. 

 It all seemed so homely and so fertile that it was 

 difficult to believe that we were really in the heart of 

 the wilderness. It would not have been surprising to see 

 a large country house built on the hill, with lawns 

 sloping down to the river and golf links beyond. One 

 felt that one had often walked in such places before. 

 As it was, though there were slots of reindeer in the 

 moss, the place was profoundly solitary except for the 

 birds. Half a dozen geese rose gag-gaggling from the 

 waterside, and I took another nest of four eggs. 

 Divers of both kinds were plentiful, and bred together 

 on the same pools. Sylkin found two more nests, one 



