76 THE ZOOLOGIS!. 
condition, and when the sun was hot it was difficult to walk dryshot in 
consequence of the pools of liquid manure, which filled every depression 
in the ground, and no doubt very frequently soaked into the wells. This 
manure makes Ust-Zylma one vast dunghill, and would probably produce 
much disease were it not for the fact that it is frozen for nearly seven 
months out of the twelve, and is in most years carried away soon after it 
thaws by the floods of the Petchora, which generally overflow its banks, 
when the snow melts all at once with the sudden arrival of summer. It not 
unfrequently happens at this season of the year that half the village is under 
water, and the peasants have to boat from house to house.” 
ALEXIEVKA FROM THE TUNDRA. 
The flat country on the banks of the Petchora upon which the 
village is built does not extend more than a few hundred yards. 
The land then rapidly rises, and these slopes are cultivated for 
some way up the hill-side. During their sojourn here the 
travellers were fortunate in obtaining many interesting details 
respecting the country and its inhabitants from two gentlemen in 
the employ of the Petchora Timber Trading Company, Capt. 
Arendt and Capt. Engel, who furnished them also with much 
information that proved useful to them. 
One of the commonest birds observed at Ust-Zylma was the 
Snow Bunting, which arrives there early in April. The actions 
of the male birds in the spring were very pretty :— 
