viii PREFACE. 



have at least the charm of novelty. It is true that 

 we had to put up sometimes with hardships, but 

 the recollection even of them is one of unmixed 

 pleasure. Would that the narrative of our success 

 might stimulate some of our junior ornithologists to 

 follow in our steps. Much yet remains to be done. 

 It is absurd to suppose that the ornithology of such 

 a wide district could be exhausted in a single trip. 

 Our information about those curious people, the 

 Samoyedes, must be considered as only supple- 

 mentary to, and confirmatory of, the account con- 

 tained in Rae's 'Land of the Nprth Wind,' or the 

 more elaborate observations of Castren and Schrenck. 

 We neither of us make any claim to a scientific 

 knowledge of ethnology, and the information on the 

 subject contained in the following pages is merely 

 such as interested us as tourists, and which, together 

 with the greater portion of our ornithological obser- 

 vations, may prove interesting to the general reader. 



