A GOOD HUNTING-GROUND 93 



the low willows, uttering a plaintive call, a single note 

 repeated at intervals. We were under the impression 

 that we were adding a new bird to the European list, 

 but w r e afterwards found that our discovery had been 

 forestalled by M. Meves of Stockholm, who had found 

 at some years previously in the government of Perm. A 

 third specimen which we added to our list was a skylark. 

 On our return home we found that Znaminski had also 

 been out shooting, and had bagged some very interesting 

 birds for us five green wagtails, three meadow-pipits, 

 two red-throated pipits, and a stonechat, the latter not 

 the European but the Indian species (Pratincola maura, 

 Pall.), a new and interesting addition to the European 

 fauna. Znaminski's hunting-ground had been a marshy- 

 piece of land just behind the town, sprinkled over with 

 -small spruce firs, bushes of stunted birch, juniper, and 

 dwarf rhododendrons (Ledum palustre). To this spot 

 we betook ourselves the next morning, and found it to 

 be a favourite resting-place of migratory birds. We 

 shot a red-throated pipit on the ground, solitary among 

 a company of meadow-pipits. We secured a green wag- 

 tail and a short-eared owl. In this favoured spot the 

 willow-warblers congregated and were in full song ; the 

 blue-throated warblers were also there, but their song 

 was not so full ; it resembled sometimes the warble of the 

 pipit and sometimes that of the whitethroat. We secured, 

 besides, a brace of golden plover and a reed-bunting. 



During the afternoon we visited the skirts of the 

 pine-forest in the valley, and there I shot two male 

 wheatears. The day before, a male and female wheatear 

 had flown past me and perched on the summit of a tall 

 pine. Out of a spruce fir in the wood we fc now heard a 

 loud, clear " chiff-cheff-chaff." We thought it was the 

 cry of the chiffchaff; but we failed to find the bird. 



