68 BIRDS OF RUSSIAN LAPLAND 



spelt Yukanskoe in the Arctic Pilot), going up the valley, and thus 

 making the same mistake as in 1895, the result of not previously 

 reading up my old diary. This track leads on to the hills consider- 

 ably to the left of the lake ; the direct route is over the hill on the 

 right side of the village when looking up the valley, and is a fairly 

 well-marked path most of the way. The first lake we came to — a 

 mile from Lutni and in the same valley — was clear from ice, and had 

 a pair of Red-throated Divers on it ; but all the other small lakes we 

 passed were still frozen over, and some bore marks where sledges had 

 recently crossed. Two pairs and a single Dotterel were on the hills, so 

 this species had commenced to return to its breeding-ground. Lake 

 Ukanskoe and its surroundings showed little signs of summer yet, 

 although this was the first day of that season, for much of the country 

 was covered with snowdrifts, and all the lake below the islands was 

 under ice except a small patch where the river leaves it. The upper 

 river had broken up a week or more before the date of our arrival, 

 and had piled its banks high with great blocks of ice eighteen inches 

 to two feet thick ; the remainder had been carried down to the upper 

 part of the lake, where it lay heaped up on the islands and the lake- 

 ice. Both the islands and the shore line showed the water had been 

 five feet higher than its present level, during the early part of the 

 thaw. 



In 1895 the hillside above the lake had been clothed with a 

 beautiful birch-wood, many of the trees fourteen to sixteen feet high, 

 the largest trees we saw in this part of the country. Now most of 

 these were gone, cut down for firewood when the snow was here, as 

 shown by the height of the stumps. This question of fuel must 

 become pressing in some parts of the country during the next fifteen 

 or twenty years. I noticed a marked diminution in the quantity 

 available since our last visit, and I am sure it is being cut down much 

 more quickly than Nature replaces it. 



Two Ravens and a Rough-legged Buzzard were hunting round the 

 lake. A few Redwings had come, and a White Wagtail sat near us 



