142 FROM NORTH POLE TO EQUATOR. 



the barking of his dogs, and, while watching the cur at the foot of 

 the tree, often overlook the marksman. The first condition of 

 success in such hunting is, that the snow have not only smoothed oif 

 most of the roughness of the ground, and thus removed the greatest 

 obstacles to progress, but that it be sufficiently firm to afford the 

 necessary resistance to the huntsman's snow-shoes. 



With incomparably greater comfort, and usually with more 

 success, the black-grouse may be hunted by means of the decoy or 

 bulban. When using this the huntsman sets out before dawn in 

 autumn, hides in the forest in a previously-prepared or rapidly-con- 

 structed hut, and there fixes up the bulban. This is a stuffed decoy- 

 bird or one fashioned of wood and tow, with black; white, and red 

 cloth at appropriate places, a deceptive imitation of the living bird. 

 It is perched by means of a pole on the highest of the surrounding 

 trees, with its head to the wind, and while the sportsman hides in 

 the hut, men and dogs drive the adjacent forest. All the young 

 black-game, or all which have not learned wisdom from previous 

 experience, fly, when disturbed, to the bulban, which, to all appear- 

 ance, is a fellow-bird sitting in reassuring security. They crowd 

 on to the same tree, and the sportsman beneath, equipped with a 

 small-bored and but slightly noisy rifle, or sometimes also with a 

 fowling-piece, often has the pick of dozens of silly birds. In woods 

 which are undisturbed throughout the summer, the black -grouse 

 are so heedless of the slight report of the rifle, that after a bird has 

 fallen dead from the tree the others do not fly away, but stretching 

 their necks gaze at their fallen comrade, and wait quietly until the 

 marksman has reloaded and claimed a second or a third victim. So 

 abundant are these birds that the assertion that a single sportsman 

 may, in the course of the morning, bring down twenty or more 

 without leaving his hut is perfectly credible. 



Not less effective than the decoying of black-game, fascinating 

 moreover, and satisfactory to every sportsman, is the hunting of 

 the hazel-grouse as practised in Siberia. No special equipment of 

 any kind is required, not even trained dogs — ^useful auxiliaries none 

 the less — are indispensable. The hazel-grouse is very abundant in 

 all suitable parts of the West Siberian forests, perhaps more abun- 



