44 UST-ZYLMA 



ground. To travel a mile would probably be a hard 

 day's work, completely knocking one up. On snow-shoes 

 we got along comfortably at the rate of three miles an 

 hour, and we soon became tolerably at home on them. 

 They were about seven feet long and six inches wide, 

 made of birch wood, and covered underneath with rein- 

 deer skin, with the hair pointing behind. This is abso- 

 lutely necessary to enable one to ascend a hill, the hair 

 preventing effectually any sliding backwards. The great 

 difficulty with which we had to contend at first was to 

 avoid treading on our toes, but with a little practice we 

 learnt to keep our shoes parallel. In going down hill 

 we had to be careful lest our speed should increase to 

 the point where we lost the control of our centres of 

 gravity. 



Every day we sallied out with our guns and snow- 

 shoes in search of birds, but during the first week or so 

 it was somewhat monotonous work, and we soon began 

 to tire of winter. There were very few birds to be seen. 

 In the village the hooded crow, the magpie, and the tree- 

 sparrow were common, and now and then we saw a 

 raven. The peasants brought us capercailzie and hazel 

 grouse, which they shot with their rifles and offered 

 us at twenty kopecks (about sevenpence) each for the 

 capercailzie, and the same sum per brace for the hazel 

 grouse. These birds are probably all residents, though 

 Father Inokentia told us that the hooded crow was a 

 migratory bird at Pustorzersk, arriving there about the 

 loth of May. 



The commonest bird at this season of the year in the 

 streets of Ust-Zylma is undoubtedly the snow-bunting 

 {Plectrophanes nivalis). We were told that they arrived 

 about the ist of April. In spite of its abundance we 

 could not help looking upon it with all the interest 



