A GOOD HUNTING-GROUND 93 



the low willows, uttering a plaintive call, a single note 

 repeated at intervals. We were under the impression 

 that we were adding a new bird to the European list, 

 but we afterwards found that our discovery had been 

 forestalled by M. Meves of Stockholm, who had found 

 it some years previously in the government of Perm. A 

 third specimen which we added to our list was a skylark. 

 On our return home we found that Znaminski had also 

 been out shooting, and had bagged some very interesting 

 birds for us — five green wagtails, three meadow-pipits, 

 two red-throated pipits, and a stonechat, the latter not 

 the European but the Indian species {Pratincola maura, 

 Pall.), a new and interesting addition to the European 

 fauna. Znaminski's hunting-ground had been a marshy 

 piece of land just behind the town, sprinkled over with 

 small spruce firs, bushes of stunted birch, juniper, and 

 dwarf rhododendrons {Ledum palustre). To this spot 

 we betook ourselves the next morning, and found it to 

 be a favourite resting-place of migratory birds. We 

 shot a red-throated pipit on the ground, solitary among 

 a company of meadow-pipits. We secured a green wag- 

 tail and a short-eared owl. In this favoured spot the 

 willow-warblers congregated and were in full song ; the 

 blue-throated warblers were also there, but their song 

 was not so full ; it resembled sometimes the warble of the 

 pipit and sometimes that of the whitethroat. We secured, 

 besides, a brace of golden plover and a reed-bunting. 



During the afternoon we visited the skirts of the 

 pine-forest in the valley, and there I shot two male 

 wheatears. The day before, a male and female wheatear 

 had flown past me and perched on the summit of a tall 

 pine. Out of a spruce fir in the wood we now heard a 

 loud, clear "chiff-cheff-chaff." We thought it was the 

 cry of the chiffchaff; but we failed to find the bird. 



