the Birds of the Lower Petchora . 
447 
(Edemia nigra (L.) . 
The first Common Scoter was identified as it flew close past 
the steamer at Ust Zylma on the 1st Jnne. Afterwards, at vari¬ 
ous localities, Common Scoters were seen by us as we floated 
down stream; and they were common on the tundra as far north 
as Stanavoialachta, especially among the lakes near Vassilkova 
and Yooshina, and at Stanavoilachta, where the tundra has 
more the appearance of a rolling prairie than elsewhere. At 
Yooshina, on the south side of the river of that name, some 
parts of the tundra are very beautiful, being a rolling moor, 
covered on the top with reindeer-moss and carices, and quan¬ 
tities of crow-berries, and with thickets of low scrub-willow 
and birch in the hollows and beside the numerous little tarns 
and pools. Small streams of beautifully clear water, perhaps 
not more than a foot or two wide, and the same or more in 
depth, with gravelly or sandy bottom, unite a chain of these 
lakes, by the sides of which are often curiously shaped mounds, 
like old ant-hills, covered with dried leaves of the arctic 
bramble (Rubus arcticus ), and bearing still a plentiful supply 
of last year’s cranberries. By the side of one of these little 
runlets of water, in an opening in the scrub, we found quite 
a little forest of aureola-plant (Veratrum album) (Ibis, 1873, 
p. 62), and also quantities of marsh-marigold, golden saxi¬ 
frage, and a dwarf geranium. Broad-leaved sorrel, too, in 
the absence of all vegetable food, was as refreshing to the 
palate as to the eye. 
On one of the lakes we saw assembled the following wild¬ 
fowl . —two male Scaups, two pairs of Long-tailed Ducks, a 
pair of Bean-Geese, a pair of Widgeon, a Black-throated 
Diver, and a Bed-throated Diver, a Bed-breasted Merganser 
(the first we had seen), and several Bed-necked Phalaropes. 
At the time of our visit to the Golaievskai banks, vast num¬ 
bers of Black Scoters were congregated along the shore and 
in the water on the inside of the island called No. 3 in the 
Admiralty Chart. When we approached they all rose and 
flew away in a body to the southward. As has already been 
remarked, large flocks of these or other Ducks seen at a dis¬ 
tance on a calm glassy sea, and with refraction busily at 
