A SUMMER ON THE YENESEI 237 



hushed it while his wife prepared the samovar ; and as 

 it pressed its face to his shoulder, there was something 

 grotesque and, at the same time, tragic in the likeness 

 between father and child. We were so hungry that the 

 meal of black bread, salt fish, and " brick " tea seemed 

 one of the most delicious that we had ever tasted. 

 Afterwards I went out shooting in the marsh, being 

 anxious, if possible, to procure a specimen of the downy 

 young of the Siberian herring-gull. The birds were 

 evidently nesting on the tussocky islands in the lake. 

 I shot two adult birds, but persuaded myself that it 

 was too cold and too far to swim out on the chance of 

 finding eggs. A grey plover, a species that I had not 

 noticed on my previous visit in July, was also breeding 

 in the marsh. I watched her for a long time, and 

 finally came to the conclusion that she must have young 

 ones hidden somewhere among the herbage, for she 

 would run to one spot and shufile upon the ground to 

 decoy me into following her, and then go through the 

 same antics in a totally difi'erent place, as if she were 

 trying to protect first one fledgling and then another. 



There were a number of Yurak chooms pitched 

 farther down the river, for there is quite a Yurak colony 

 at Och Marino in the summer-time. Seebohm, writing 

 on his visit to the Yenesei,^ says that it is difficult to 

 discriminate between the Samoyede and Yurak tribes, 

 and came to the conclusion that the former is a general 

 name for any native. 



The word " Samoyede " is certainly used in a general 

 sense to describe the tribes on the Yenesei ; but the 



^ Birds of Siberia, p. 400, 



