A DUCK-HUNT 85 



saw these common sparrows among the tree-sparrows 

 in our yard, nor had we any reason to think that they 

 were to be found elsewhere in the town. 



On the 19th we received an invitation from our 

 friends who had assisted us in our late wild-goose 

 chase, to join them in a duck-hunt. M. Znaminski 

 had a maisonnette a few versts up the Zylma, which 

 he turned to use on such occasions of sport. He and 

 M, Sacharoff were already there. We accepted the 

 invitation, and after sledging across the Petchora, and 

 perhaps four versts up the Zylma, we reached our host's 

 quarters at about 3 a.m. We had made a somewhat 

 circuitous road up the Zylma, for there were many 

 ugly-looking places in the ice which had to be avoided. 

 On arriving we dismissed our yemschiks, who returned 

 to Ust-Zylma with orders to come with five sledges to 

 fetch our whole party back on the following day at noon. 



The shooting-ground was a flat piece of country lying 

 between the Petchora and the Zylma. It bore traces of its 

 annual submersion for a week or two under the waters of the 

 great river when it breaks up. The larger part was covered 

 with a forest of birch, willow, and alder ; many of the trees 

 were dead, perhaps in consequence of the flood, and drift- 

 wood was scattered or accumulated in piles all around. 



It was heavy work walking in these woods, or rather 

 wading through the water and snow in them. Every 

 now and then we came to a lake or an open swamp, or 

 found ourselves on the banks of a kuria or creek where 

 the snow had melted, and the walking was easier. Few 

 or no trees grew by the side of these kurias ; the banks 

 of the Zylma also were bare, the forests near the rivers 

 being shorn off by the ice, which sometimes mows down 

 the stoutest trees as a man mows grass with a scythe. 

 On the low ground between the Zylma and the forest 



