CASES OF xiDAPTxiTIOX 



147 



" Birds go to the Arctic regions to breed^ not by thousands but 

 by millions. The cause of this migration is to be found in the 

 lavish prodigality with which Nature has provided food. Seed or 



fruit-eating birds find an immediate and abundant supply of cran- 

 berries^ crowberries, and other ground fruit, which have remained 

 frozen during the long winter, and are accessible the moment the 

 snow has melted, while insect-eating birds have only to open their 

 mouths to fill them with mosquitoes/' ^ 



Among the larger birds that come early to "these regions 

 to breed are two species of wild swans and the bean goose. 

 So early as 10th May they began to arrive, passing over Ust- 

 Zylma (Lat. G6^ N.) in flocks, where, by constiiicting a shelter, 

 Mr. Seebohm was able to shoot one. Even these large birds 

 find ample food on the tundra to breed there ; for just before 

 leaving the country, wdien near the mouth of the Petchora 



1 Siberia in Europe, p. 296. 



