310 On the Birds of the Lower Petchora. 
in the beginning of June, and afterwards traced it down the 
river as far as the head of the delta, where, however, it was 
scarce, and much scarcer than the next species. We did not 
see it at Alexievka, nor anywhere upon the tundra. We were 
not a little surprised when we first became acquainted with 
the arboreal habits of the Snipe at Habariki, and saw one of 
these birds perched, seventy feet from the ground, on the 
topmost upright twig of a bare larch, where, one would have 
thought, it could scarcely find sufficient foot-hold. With its 
head lower than its body and tail, it sat there, uttering at in¬ 
tervals the curious double “ clucking ” note, tjick-tjuck } tjick- 
tjuck } whilst others of the same species were u drumming 39 
high in air over the marsh. To put all beyond a doubt, 
Harvie Brown shot one in this peculiar position. Nor is 
the Common Snipe the only bird which, not practising 
the habit with us, we found perching freely in Northern 
Russia: the Snow-Bunting and Pipits have already been 
instanced; and we may also mention the Common Gull, as 
will be seen under the notice of that species further on. The 
Curlew also was seen to perch on bushes and trees at Sujma, 
near Archangel, by Alston and Harvie Brown in 1872 (Ibis, 
1873, p. 70). There can be little doubt, we imagine, that 
this habit was induced in the first instance, by the flooding 
of great tracts of country by the annual overflow of the 
rivers in spring, just at the time of the passage of the mi¬ 
gratory flights, and, further, that what was originally forced 
upon them has become, by use, a favourite habit. 
S COLOP AX MAJOR, L. 
We shot a couple of Great Snipes in the forest tract behind 
Habariki, which were the first examples we saw of the species. 
This was on the night of the 3-4th June. Afterwards we 
found it not uncommonly on the river and abundantly on the 
delta, especially between Viski and Gorodok, where we fell 
in with a large migratory flight on the 17th June. The spe¬ 
cimens of the latter which we shot proved to be all male birds. 
The following day we found a nest containing three eggs on 
an island opposite Kuya. We did not find it anywhere on 
the tundra. 
