210 SIBERIA IN EUROPE. chap, xviii., 



herping, and even these did not appear to be at all plentiful. 

 Leaving the shore, our curio.sity led us first to visit the 

 eyries of the two pairs, of peregrine falcons, at each of which 

 we had .shot one of the birds. We found that the male 

 of the first had paired with the female of the second; a 

 fresh lining of feathers had been put into the latter's nest, 

 and doubtless there would soon be eggs. The dotterels still 

 haunted the hillsides. We ehot some near each of the 

 deserted houses — two by one, three by the other. Doubtless 

 the right thing to have done would have been to lie down 

 and watch the birds on to their nests and to have taken the 

 eggs. But, in the first place, a dotterel is very difficult to see 

 through a mosquito-veil ; the next, to lie down and become 

 the nucleus of a vast nebula of mosquitoes is so tormenting 

 to the nerves, that we soon chose to adopt the consolatory 

 conclusion that the grapes were sour and not worth the 

 trouble of reaching after ; or, in plain words, that the birds 

 had not begun to breed, and it was no use martyrising 

 ourselves to find their eggs. The mosquitoes were simply 

 a plague. Our hats were covered with them ; they swarmed 

 upon our veils; they lined with a fringe the branches 

 of the dwarf birches and willows ; they covered the tundra 

 with a mist. I was fortunate in the arrangement of 

 my veil, and by dint of indiarubber boots and cayalry 

 gauntlets, I escaped many wounds ; but my companion was 

 not so lucky. His net was perpetually transformed into a 

 little mosquito-cage; his leggings and knickerbockers were 

 by no means mosquito-proof; he had twisted a handkerchief 

 round each liand, but this proved utterly insufficient pro- 



