360 FULL SUMMER AT LAST 



tailed animals in the slender branches of the hazel-trees, 

 sometimes twelve and twenty feet aloft. As they ran 

 along the ground or up the trunk of the tree, they had all 

 the actions of our squirrel. They proved to be striped 

 squirrels.^ 



The next day was dull, with heavy gales from the 

 west, but the frequent showers did not seem to diminish 

 the number of birds. I shot a common gull after having 

 watched it perching in a larch-tree; Harvie-Brown and 

 I had noticed this habit of the gull in the valley of the 

 Petchora. Two or three times I had caught a passing 

 glimpse of a dark-coloured thrush, with a very conspicuous 

 white eyebrow. I was now fortunate enough to secure 

 one, as it was feeding on the ground in a dense birch 

 plantation. It is a most beautiful bird, the Siberian 

 ground- thrush (Geocichla sibirica), but it seemed to be 

 very rare and very shy. 



The fieldfares, which had hitherto been very wild, 

 were now comparatively tame. They were in full song, 

 if their subdued chatter be musical enough to be called a 

 song. They often sing as they fly. That day I shot 

 a new bird, the mountain hedge-sparrow {Accentor 

 montanellus}. I also found another wiofeon's nest with 



/ o 



six eggs in it. 



The next morning I secured a couple more males of 

 my new hedge-sparrow. They seemed wonderfully quiet 

 birds, I did not hear them utter a note. In the after- 

 noon we saw KitmanofFs steamer pass on its way to the 

 Kureika; it had my new schooner the Ibis in tow, built 

 by Boiling in Yeneseisk. I had arranged with Captain 

 Wiggins to go shares in her with me, his part of the 

 contract being to finish her, and rig her out English 

 fashion. In the half- wrecked condition of the Thames 



* Vide note, p. 308. 



