122 OUR VOYAGE TO THE DELTA 



favour, but the wind contrary, and with only a couple of 

 oars propelling us along. The scenery was often inter- 

 esting. The west bank, lofty and steep, was now and 

 then clothed to the water's edge with forests of birches 

 and pines ; the east bank at that part was a dead flat 

 covered with willows. Numberless islands studded the 

 water, kurias running up amongst them, sometimes of 

 great picturesqueness. The tirrr'-eeM of the Terek sand- 

 piper resounded continually ; and sometimes we heard 

 the cry of the common sandpiper. We shot a brace of 

 the latter, the first we had secured ; we found the species 

 very wild. Two or three times during the day we pulled 

 up on an island or on the mainland. On a sandy island 

 thinly covered with grass we came upon a party fishing 

 with a seine net ; we watched and saw the net twice 

 drawn without result. On this island we shot a hen- 

 harrier, a cuckoo, and a short-eared owl. A few gulls 

 were flying about — the common gull and the Siberian 

 herring-gull. As we pulled on, I saw a party of six 

 waxwings flying north. Willow-warblers abounded ; I 

 watched one for some time that allowed me to approach 

 within six feet of it. I noticed that some appeared to 

 have a whiter throat and a more rapid song than usual. 

 One I heard vociferously uttering a note unlike any that 

 I have heard from the willow-warbler, tus-zuk. These 

 observations convinced me that two species of willow- 

 warblers exist in these parts, and upon a careful examina- 

 tion of our skins afterwards, I found that I had shot an 

 Arctic willow-warbler {Phylloscopus borealis). Swans, 

 geese, and ducks, especially the latter, were to be seen in 

 the ponds behind the fringing belts of willows ; amongst 

 these we clearly identified the scaup and the black scoter. 

 We found six ducks' nests, most of which were those of 

 the wigeon. In one of these dense willow-swamps lining 



