48 



In these dense thickets it is almost impossible to see a bird far enough off to shoot it without 

 blowing it to pieces ; and if by chance you do get a shot, it is almost like looking for a needle in 

 a bottle of hay to seek for your bird amongst the long grass ; otherwise we might have obtained 

 many more specimens. 



" One of the usual notes of the Siberian ChifFchaff is not badly expressed by the word 

 chw'-it. This is generally repeated two or three times in rapid succession. It is very commonly 

 varied to chiv-W, cldv-et', also repeated rapidly. On one occasion I listened for some time to one 

 of these birds whose note was like chmg'-chh'-it, repeated in rapid succession, and as often as not 

 leaving off with a final chihg. Unlike our ChifFchaff this bird has a song, as loud, but not nearly 

 so musical, as that of the Willow- Warbler. It appears, however, to be used only during the 

 courting-season. We heard it both at Ust Zylma and at Haberiki ; but we did not hear it after 

 our arrival at Alexievka (on the 19th June). The song is a rapid repetition of its call-note chiv-W, 

 clnv-et', run into a song by the introduction of a few rather more musical notes. Whether the 

 call-note and the song are common to both sexes we were unable to ascertain. All the males, 

 except the first which we shot, uttered the call-note ; but we never heard either of the two 

 females utter a sound ; and we shot them because they looked small, on the chance of their 

 turning out to be either this species or P. eversmanni. We twice heard what may have been the 

 alarm-note of this bird, a single plaintive note, difficult to express on paper. We were not able 

 satisfactorily to determine whether the alarm-note (hoo-ee) common to the three British species of 

 this genus is uttered by this bird, though we suspected it on more than one occasion. 



" The habits of this species are very similar to those of the rest of the genus. It is very active 

 and restless, especially when feeding. It is then usually silent, frequenting the lower branches of 

 the trees, or seeking its insect food amongst the willows and the underwood, scarcely remaining 

 for more than a second or two upon one twig, reminding one of a Tit, both in its activity and in 

 the positions it assumes. At other times, when singing or uttering its call-note, it remains for 

 some time on one branch, often the topmost spray of a spruce fir or lofty larch, or, in the delta, 

 on a conspicuous branch of a willow a little higher than the rest. 



" We did not succeed in finding the nest of the Siberian ChifFchaff. We Avere soon con- 

 vinced that it was an utterly hopeless task to attempt to watch the bird on to its nest in the small 

 open places covered with grass, a foot or more high and surrounded by dense willow thickets. The 

 difficulty was immensely increased by the clouds of mosquitoes which generally swarmed in these 

 thickets. Life without a komamik was simply unendurable ; and to watch a small bird in such a 

 locality through the mosquito-veil quite as impossible. Our only chance was to stumble upon 

 the nest by accident. Fortunately there were, at the time of our visit to Alexievka, about forty 

 men working upon the island, in the employ of the Petchora Timber-trading Company. These 

 men were Ismichi or Syriani, from Ust Ishma ; and many of them were glad to earn an extra 

 rouble now and then by bird-nesting on holidays and after working-hours. 



" All birds breed very late in the delta of the Petchora. The islands are under water until 

 the beginning of June. Consequently all birds breeding upon the islands — Swans, Ducks, 

 Wagtails, Pipits, Warblers, Buntings, Redpoles, Sandpipers, &c. begin to breed somewhere 

 about the same time. The first nest of a Phylloscopus was brought to us on the 23rd June. 

 After the first week of July we obtained no eggs of any species on the delta that were not too 



