266 SIBERIA IN EUROPE. chap. xxi. 



over the tundra, making for the marshy ground upon 

 which I had seen the dunlins, but not one was there. 

 Doubtless the young oould fly by this time, and had joined 

 their parents on their favourite feeding ground. On the 

 brackish lake close by we shot a brood of long-tailed ducks, 

 and afterwards found an empty nest in the short, coarse 

 grass, placed exactly at high-tide water-mark. It contained 

 down enough to identify the species. There was no cover to 

 the nest, except a margin of thin turf, that looked as if it 

 had been turned up by a spade. Possibly it had been 

 pulled up thus by the bill of the bird. On the lake there 

 were, as before, a couple of black-throated divers. I waited 

 for a short while, hiding in the cleft of the bank, as I had 

 done on the previous occasion, when I had shot the little 

 stints, but none were to be seen. I then skirted the margin 

 of the bay to its narrow entrance, having spied a grey 

 plover or two, a pair of Arctic terns, and a few herring-gulls. 

 When there, a small number of dunlins passed rapidly over- 

 head, and I repeatedly saw flocks of little stints. How- 

 ever, these might have been the same flock passing and 

 repassing. They were very wild, and I could not get a shot. 

 Some time before, my companion and I had parted company. 

 We now met at one of the capes at the southern extremity 

 of the high promontory. Cocksure was with him. On 

 comparing notes I found their experience had been much 

 the same as mine, only Cocksure had shot a Temminck's 

 stint, near the sandhills. In returning we separated again 

 to cover more ground ; and again when we met, and com- 

 pared notes, we found that to each the sandhills, the lakes. 



