454 BY STEAMER TO YENESEISK 



those we shot were birds of the year. I added two fresh 

 ones to my Hst, the tree-pipit and Blyth's reed-warbler 

 {Acrocephalus dumetorum). The latter was making a 

 sound like ''tick-tick." Sand-martins were breeding in 

 great numbers on the banks of the river ; they evidently 

 had unfledged young. As I walked on the top of the 

 bank, they flew at me uttering a shrill harsh cry, which I 

 do not remember having heard in England. The Siberian 

 chiffchaff and the Arctic willow-warbler were also common, 

 — the latter in full song, the former uttering its plaintive 

 alarm-note only. For some days the common sandpiper 

 had frequented in large numbers the sand at the water's 

 edge. The common gull haunted the river, and we 

 rarely saw the larger species. In the evening the vessel 

 stopped an hour to take in wood, just outside the Pod- 

 kamennaya Tungusk river, and in the fir-trees behind the 

 village I shot a couple of black-throated ouzels, female 

 and young. 



In the dusk of the following evening we steamed up 

 to the entrance of the Kamin Pass, and there anchored 

 for the night, the pilots being unwilling to risk the navi- 

 gation of that part of the river without daylight. 



Soon after four we got under way again. The 

 scenery here was certainly very fine. It looked very 

 different on a sunshiny summer's day from its appearance 

 on a blustery winter's morning. Many of the rocks 

 appeared to be limestone, conspicuously veined with 

 quartz. In one place high up the cliff was a large colony 

 of house-martins. 



The peasants told us that the mountains are fre- 

 quented by a kind of ibex, which they call kabagar ; they 

 described it as having very small horns but long hair, 

 and they told us that it produces musk. This animal 

 must not be confounded with the kalkun a kind of goat 



