A SUMMER ON THE YENESEI 253 



buttercups — to blue and saffron — poppies, lupines, and 

 forget-me-nots — and lastly to purple and red — valerian 

 and heath ; but all the blooms chase each other through 

 a space of six weeks, and you have no sooner realised 

 their coming than they have gone again. It is just 

 the synopsis of a summer, and already the whortle- 

 berry leaves were tinged blood-red with autumn. The 

 only butterflies that hovered over the flowers were two 

 species that were evidently nearly allied to the brim- 

 stones and tortoiseshells of our English waysides ; and 

 there was also a small day-flying moth, with wings 

 prettily variegated with primrose and umber. ^ 



But although vegetable life was at its heyday, the 

 tide of bird life had already begun to ebb towards the 

 south. The Temminck's stints, the last of the waders 

 to breed, set their signs manual in the criss-cross 

 patterns of their toes as they paddled over the mud, 

 but the willow-grouse and the little stints and the rufl"s 

 were already strong on the wing. Young snow-buntings, 

 bluethroats, and wheatears flitted along the river-bank, 

 and a couple of long-tailed ducks chaperoned their 

 broods out of the ken of a soaring buzzard. 



Even the remnant of the mosquitoes could not 

 disturb the Sabbatarian calm of the tundra. It was 

 good to be alive and listen how the birds on the sand- 

 banks gave thanks for the good weather that a kind 

 Providence sends to the Yenesei in August to make 

 amends for the storms that are to be. Even the Giant 



• A specimen lias been identified by the authorities at tlio British 

 Museum as Htiphoraia siibnebulosa (Dyer), which has been described from 

 Alaska. 



