76 THE ADVENT OF SUMMER 



succeeded in shooting four while feeding upon the bare 

 places on the banks of the island. We also started a pair 

 of wild geese and a large owl, probably the snowy owl, 

 which alighted on a heap of snow in the middle of the 

 Petchora. Its flight resembled that of the glaucous gull, 

 but it occasionally skimmed close to the snow for some 

 distance. 



We traced along the snow the footprints of a bear and 

 its cubs, about a day or two old. The traces of Bruin's 

 presence had an added interest to us from the fact that 

 for the last two days we had been breakfasting and dining 

 on a saddle of bear, and most excellent we had found it, 

 much better than beef. The animal we had been feasting 

 on was about a year old ; it had been turned out of its 

 place of hybernation by some woodcutters, who had cut 

 down the tree at the root of which it was sleeping. I bought 

 the skin, and had an excellent hearth-rug made of it. 



Summer now seemed to have suddenly burst upon us 

 in all its strength, the sun was scorching, the snow in 

 many places melted so rapidly as to be almost impassable. 

 The mud banks of the Zylma were steaming from the 

 heat. On the I2th of May, about noon, the weather 

 grew hazy, with a very conspicuous halo around the sun- 

 like a dull circular rainbow ; the wind was warmer than 

 it had yet been, and in the afternoon there came on a 

 steady rain, the first rain we had seen since we left home. 

 Sancho Panza says that one swallow does not make a 

 summer ; but the arrival of six species of migratory birds 

 within two days ought to have some significance. On 

 the nth we saw for the first time a pair of swans. The 

 same day, on the half-open land between the Petchora 

 and the Zylma, we saw some flocks of wild geese, and, 

 near a pool of water on the ice, half a dozen Siberian 

 herring-gulls (Larus affinis, Rheinh.). Their cry seemed 



