19? SIBERIA IN EUROPE. chap. xvr. 



within shot from a patch of willow cover. Sometimes we 

 would see a pair knocking about the tundra, like two big 

 white butterilies, with a peculiar up-and-down flight, then 

 they would go tumbling into a willow-grown knoll on the 

 hillside. It might be owing to their extreme conspi- 

 cuousness that their flight always seemed so much more 

 clumsy than that of the red grouse. One of their nests, 

 which we found on the ground, contained a baker's dozen of 

 eggs. It was a mere hollow scraped in the turf, lined with 

 a leaf or two, a little dry grass, and a few feathers. The 

 next day we succeeded in shooting the female peregrine, 

 on the first eyrie we had discovered, then, after taking a 

 sketch of the place, we set out for Alexievka, visiting on our 

 way a couple of islands on the delta. The first on which we 

 disembarked was very marshy, and covered with small 

 willows. On this island the willow-warblers were rare, but 

 we occasionally heard the Siberian chiff-chaff, and we noticed 

 one almost incessantly repeating " chi-vit'-che-vet'." The 

 yellow-headed wagtail was common, the shore-lark disap- 

 peared altogether, the Lapland bunting was represented by 

 a solitary bird. Eed-throated pipits were still numerous ; 

 but we did not see the meadow pipit. The sedge warbler 

 abounded. We also saw several Temminck's stints, phala- 

 ropes, a flock of eight Buffon's skuas, and ducks of various 

 sorts. The other island was almost entirely a grassy marsh, 

 interspersed with spaces of open water. A flock of Siberian 

 herring-gulls hovered about a party of fishermen, who were 

 catching with a seine net a small fish exactly resembling 

 the herring. Temminck's stints congregated in great num- 



