SONG OF THE BLUE-THROAT 101 



"whit- whit" of the chaffinch. As he improves in voice, 

 he sings louder and longer, until at last he almost 

 approaches the nightingale in the richness of the melody 

 he pours forth. Sometimes he will sing as he flies 

 upward, descending with expanded wings and tail, to 

 alight on the highest bough of some low tree, almost 

 exactly as the tree-pipit does. When the females have 

 arrived, there comes at the end of his song the most 

 metallic note I have ever heard a bird utter. It is a sort 

 of "ting-ting," resembling the sound produced by the 

 hitting of a suspended bar of steel with another piece of 

 the same metal. 



Our afternoon walk was more fruitful of result than 

 that of the morning. I had followed for some time the 

 shore of the overflowing Petchora, when, after having 

 bagged a brace of wood-sandpipers and a ring-dotterel, I 

 crossed a sandbank to a marshy pool. The muffled 

 croak of numerous toads or frogs kept up a sound 

 resembling that of gurgling water. On my approach the 

 whole tribe disappeared and hid in the mud. After I 

 had waited a while, three slowly put up their noses above 

 the surface. I fired ineffectually upon the reptiles, but I 

 started seven or eight sandpipers and a red-throated 

 pipit, upon which I set off at once in pursuit of the last 

 bird. I presently found myself on a marshy piece of 

 ground, covered with grassy hillocks, in the narrow 

 trenches between which pipits were sitting. As I walked 

 on they rose at my feet on all sides, and I soon had half 

 a dozen within shot. I brought down a bird with each 

 barrel, reloaded, and, as I walked up to my victims, 

 there rose between me and them two or three pipits, 

 who evidently preferred being shot to being trodden 

 upon. Unfortunately I had but two cartridges left, so, 

 bringing down another brace, I went back to our quarters 



