xii PREFACE 



An interval of twenty years elapsed before any material addition 

 was made to our knowledge of the country. In 1899 Alexander 

 Platonovich. Engelhardt — then Governor of the Province of Arch- 

 angel — published " A Russian Province of the North," a book which 

 will long remain the standard authority on these northern parts of 

 Russia. He gives a most graphic description of his travels through 

 Russian Lapland, the Petchora district, and Novaya Zemlya, combined 

 with a series of statistics of population, natural products, game, &c., 

 which probably only a Governor could supply. 



In the same year, Mr. Harry F. Witherby, a member of the 

 British Ornithologists' Union, followed in Rae's footsteps from 

 Kandalax to Kola; the work he did there will be more fully referred 

 to in the third chapter. I take this opportunity of acknowledging 

 the material assistance he has kindly rendered me in preparing 

 the list of birds. Mr. Witherby has sent me a list of the birds of 

 Russian Lapland, prepared by M. H. Goebel, and published in Russian 

 and German by the Imperial Society of Natural History of St. 

 Petersburgh, TXXXIII. fase. 2, 1902. This list appears to combine 

 the records of Pleske and others with those of the writer. M, Goebel 

 has divided ' the country into eighteen districts, for the purpose of 

 showing the distribution of the various species, and has added the 

 islands of Solovetski as a nineteenth. The seven species only re- 

 corded from these islands are excluded in my Appendix. He gives 

 191 species for Russian Lapland, but as several of these are synonyms 

 according to English classification, and others given only on the 

 authority of natives, the list is reduced to 182. He divides his list 

 as follows : — 



Breeding birds, ascertained through authenticated findings 

 Breeding birds, as tolerably certain from observations 

 Breeding birds, more or less doubtful . 

 Migrating birds and wandering guests . 



Winter guests 



Non-breeding and perpetual ocean bird 



133 

 14 

 20 



17 

 6 



191 



