BIRDS OF RUSSIAN LAPLAND 155 



eggs, not young in down. If that was not a trying moment to the 

 temper, I leave fellow-ornithologists to imagine one ! 



Professor Newton writes to me that Wolley never found the eggs 

 of this species himself, therefore Mr. H. L. Popham appears to be the 

 only Englishman who has done so {Ihis, 1897, p. 105). He took 

 four nests on the Yenesei river in 1895, two with eggs and two with 

 young; but found none there in 1897. Mr. Witherby also caught 

 two young in down on July i6th, and saw four more on the 23rd, and 

 thought they were then about a week old. In both cases the male 

 bird was in attendance, while Mr. Popham found him so in three out 

 of the four. 



The other man had been within a few yards of the nest, but the 

 female had not stirred. When we knew its position we were able to 

 trace the action of the male during the whole time we had been on 

 the ground, and found it corresponded very closely with that usually 

 taken by the male Black-tailed Godwit under similar circumstances. 

 A few pines — chiefly dead — were scattered over the area where we 

 first disturbed him, and he perched on these, screaming loudly, until 

 the man went near the nest, when he came down to the ground and 

 redoubled his cries ; on several occasions he flew towards the nest in 

 front of the men. In fact, if we had only understood his procedure, 

 he completely '' gave the show away," behaviour very different to that 

 of the Greenshank and Spotted Redshank. Of course this was pro- 

 bably due to our having disturbed the pair during the interesting 

 period when the young had just been hatched ; and it is absurd to 

 deduce general rules from one pair of birds. Still I think it will be 

 found that the two species of Godwit act very similarly when they 

 have a nest ; and those accustomed to the ways of the Black-tailed 

 will have little difficulty in locating the nest of the Bar-tailed species. 



One of the young was still in the nest when I arrived at the spot ; 

 we caught the other three a few yards off after considerable trouble, 

 and replaced them in the nest, but it was impossible to keep them 

 quiet until Musters shot the old birds. An hour and six films w^ere 



