192 Geese of Europe and Asia 



On approaching the bay, it is impossible to tell where the land ends and water begins ; the 

 absolutely flat land gradually and imperceptibly passing into the unruffled surface of the bay, the mire 

 merely becoming gradually thinner, and the foot sinking deeper and deeper at every step. A few 

 hundred paces from the first pools and inlets of the bay the mud is quite liquid, but small hummocks and 

 elevations from one to two inches high project above the water, and half a mile from the shore the gulls 

 wander about without wetting their feathers. 



In this locality, indeed, we may actually see the formation of land ; according to my friend 

 Yablya, who was born on Kolguev forty-three years ago, the whole of this vast plain being still flooded 

 by the sea during high autumn tides. 



The dead monotony of these boundless stretches of sand, mud, and water is relieved by an 

 extraordinary wealth of bird-life ; species like Calcarius lapponicus, Otocoris alpestns> and Anthus 

 cervinus continually rising before our reindeer, while here and there may be seen examples of 

 Motacilla alba. More abundant is Lams glaums, and still more numerous L. affinis, individuals of 

 which hovered in alarm above our heads ; while from all sides are heard the harsh notes of Colymbus 

 septentrionalis and С arcticus. Scores of the timid Charadrius pluvialis scud away on all sides, while 

 numbers of Squatarola helvetica and /Egialitis hiaticula rise into the air with loud cries in the distance, 

 their melodious notes resounding in the light haze pierced by the sun's rays. 



Here and there on the meres appear broods of Harelda glacialis and Somateria spectabihs, 

 while flocks of Phalaropus hyperboreus are swimming off the shore, which allow the stranger to come 

 within a few paces. Flocks of Tringa minitta and T. temmincki, and thousands and thousands of 

 Tringa subarquata (on their way from Taimyr to the coasts of Western Europe), fill the air with their 

 faint pipings, and alight at one moment on the sludge, at another on the water of the shallow bay hundreds 

 of paces from the shore, covering whole acres as they run in the shallow water. 



This Promoinaya Bay and its environs form one of the favourite collecting-grounds of the moulting 

 Kolguev geese. 



We were late for the moulting-time and the Samoyed goose-drives, which this year were far less 

 successful than they used to be two or three years ago (when one drive alone yielded 7000 birds) ; but 

 footprints and droppings were everywhere to be seen, and small flocks of bean -geese kept passing 

 high overhead. 



In one narrow but long lake near the bay itself we saw a pair of geese in the distance. As we 

 approached the spot, these landed on the opposite shore, but Yablya's dog gave chase, and finding 

 it safer not to continue on land, they returned to the water, where we shot them, after firing several 

 times. No other geese were seen near the lake ; but some hours later, when we were again passing the 

 lake on our way back, a solitary goose was seen, which allowed me to get near, and was accordingly 

 shot. While I was thinking how to retrieve it, a second goose appeared, not on the wing but from 

 somewhere on the shore. I fired twice at long range ; after the first shot it dived, and after the 

 second flew heavily off the lake ; but two more shots brought it down and the dog retrieved it. 



Both these were young bean-geese. 1 The first had much down left on the lesser wing-coverts, 

 the upper side of the neck, the rump, and thighs ; while the flight-feathers had scarcely emerged from the 

 stumps. The total length from the end of the bill to the end of the tail was 521 mm. The second 

 was already fully fledged, but the wings were not quite grown. Total length, 670 mm. Their legs 

 were yellow-orange, much obscured with dingy grey ; bills dark, with traces of a lighter band and a whitish 

 tip to the dark nail. 



August 1 7 — a magnificent, warm sunny day — we passed on the Vaskina ; the day before we went 

 to bed very late, and I rose at noon and crept out of the tent to bathe in the river. The tent stood on 

 a rising on the right bank, twelve feet above the river. Scarcely had I got fifteen paces from the 



1 One of these (No. 443) was quite correctly determined by Mr. Buturlin as M. arvensis, as the nail on the upper mandible occupies 

 no more than one-fourth of the culmen. Besides this, its head is considerably lighter than in the young geese from Kolguev, which I consider 

 undoubted M. segetum (Nos. 432, 433, 434, 436, and 437 of the same collection). I doubt, however, whether the darker "earthy" 

 colouring of the head in the young M. segetum of this age and the lighter brown of young M. arvensis can serve as a sufficient character 

 to distinguish these two species of geese, as the young in down of many lamellirostres present great variations in colouring. 



