Mr. H. Seebohm on the Ornithology of Siberia. 333 
nearest tree with a peculiar slow undulating flight. I care¬ 
fully preserved them, and fed them with the bodies of the 
birds I skinned, as I was anxious to secure a good series of 
their eggs. They treated me, however, in a most ungrateful 
manner. They continued to be abundant until about the 
7th of June, when the snow was pretty well melted from the 
ground. They then vanished altogether, and, with the ex¬ 
ception of a couple of birds I picked up later, in full moult, 
I saw no more of them until they reappeared in flocks at 
various stations on the return journey. I ofiered considerable 
sums for a nest containing eggs; but both the Russian peasants 
and the natives informed me that they had never heard of 
any one who had seen the nest of a Ve-rofl'-ky,’^ as they 
call this bird. They doubtless retire into the recesses of the 
forest to breed. 
Pica rustica. Scop. 
Magpies were very common as far as Yen-e-saisk', but dis¬ 
appeared further north, at about lat. 60®. I did not see any 
during the summer within the Arctic circle; but Mr. Ulemann, 
an exile from West Poland, and a very intelligent observer 
of birds, assured me that he saw a pair every year at Vare- 
shin'-sky, in lat. 69°, and had occasionally seen one as far 
north as Doo-dink'-a, in lat. 69^®. 
-f-STURNUS VULGARIS, Linn. 
I did not observe the Starling until we had almost reached 
Yen-e-saisk' on the return journey. At that town it was 
extremely abundant, for the most part in large flocks. 
Lanius major, Pall. 
This Shrike was very common on the roadsides as we drove 
from Yen-e-saisk' to Tomsk. It was very fond of perching 
on the telegraph-wires. It differs from L. eoecuhitor in only 
showing one white bar across the wings. The white bases to 
the primaries, from the second to the ninth inclusive, extend 
for about half an inch beyond the wing-coverts; whilst in 
the secondaries the white bases are entirely concealed by the 
wing-coverts, or are absent altogether. Russow, at the St. 
Petersburg Museum, told me that this is the common eastern 
