TO RUSSIA AND BACK. 9 
Buntings, Pine Grosbeaks, an Oxeye Titmouse, a Long- 
tailed Titmouse, a Pied Flycatcher, and five Storks. I 
bought a Sparrowhawk* and a Cuckoo, which I skinned 
the following day, together with an Oystercatcher, which an 
English resident had shot on lake Ladoga. From its 
brown back, and from the edgings to the feathers, I have 
no doubt that it is a bird of the year. 
On the 8th of September I travelled by a second-class 
carriage to Moscow. I thought it much more comfortable 
than an English first-class, and a perfect banquet was pro- 
vided at the stations where we stopped for refreshment. 
The only birds seen on the way were a few Wood 
Pigeonst and Magpies, a Rook, and an old Buzzard perched 
upon a pole. 
I was unfortunately just too late for a meeting of Zoolo- 
gists and scientific men, in which I might have heard some 
interesting questions discussed. 
As soon as I arrived I hastened to the live-bird market, 
where I found for sale the Common Sandpiper, Hawfinch, 
Crested Titmouse and Shorelark; and the next day at 
some other shops outside the wall of the “Kitai Gorod,” a 
Golden Oriole, a Missel Thrush, and a Raven; and in the 
game market the following dead birds—Goshawk (in an 
interesting state of change), Capercaillie, Hazel Grouse, 
* On the 31st of August, 1873, a young cock Sparrowhawk was made 
a prisoner in our bantam-house, having dashed through the top netting, 
of which the mesh is only two and a half inches in diameter. It must 
have been a squeeze, but he could have come in no other way. 
+ November 2oth, 1871, a gamekeeper in Norfolk drew my attention 
to a Silver-fir tree with two leaders, near to a Pheasant-feeder, (a wooden 
contrivance for corn,) remarking that he knew this deformity and many 
others like it to have been caused by Wood Pigeons coming after the 
corn, and settling on the tops of the trees when they were young and 
breaking them thus. 
