3i6 THE CHANGING SEASONS 



arrived — the first insect-eating bird, a most characteristic 

 one, no less a novelty to us than a barn-swallow. Poor 

 little bird ! he must have got strangely wrong in his 

 almanack and curiously out of his latitude. He was the 

 only one of his kind which I saw within five hundred 

 miles of the Arctic Circle, and at the time of his arrival 

 I don't think there was a solitary insect upon the wing, 

 whatever there might have been in sheltered nooks and 

 crannies. I dropped him on the snow as he was 

 industriously hawking in a gleam of sunshine — a much 

 quicker and less painful death than dying of starvation. 



Sancho Panza was very right when he said that one 

 swallow does not make a summer. I never saw more 

 complete winter weather than we had on the day follow- 

 ing the appearance of our adventurous little pioneer. 

 A cold wind blew from the north, howling round the 

 peasant's house and in the rigging of the ship, driving 

 the snow into the cook's passage and into the cabin. All 

 day long fine dry snow fell, drifting into every hollow, 

 completely shutting the great river out of view and 

 casting a thick haze over the nearest objects. I do not 

 think I ever saw a more miserable day. To add to my 

 discomfort I had a heavy cold in my head, the first attack 

 of the kind since leaving England. I expected to have 

 had an absolutely blank day, but late in the evening the 

 weather cleared up with a hard frost, and the peasant 

 across the Yenesei drove up with five crows which he 

 had shot with the muzzle-loader I had lent him. Two 

 of these crows were thoroughbred carrions, and the other 

 three cross-breeds between that bird and the hoodie. 



The next day my cold continued very heavy, and I 

 did not take my gun out at all : the north wind was still 

 blowing a gale, but there was not a cloud in the sky, and 

 it was freezing hard in the shade. In the afternoon I 



