Dr. O. FinsclTs Ornithological Letters . 63 
Besides, the nights were again dark, and often we were unable 
to proceed; even the weather was often cold and bad, and 
rains fell just as in the late autumn in Germany. So the 
distance we had gone down the river in eight days we re¬ 
quired twenty-three days to pull the lotka against the stream, 
and did not reach BerezofF before the 12th, the village of 
Samarowa not until the 26tli of September. The river had 
changed its appearance a great deal, as well as the whole 
landscape. Silent arms into which we had gone formerly 
were dried up, or had not water enough, except for Geese 
and Ducks; and the high right bank, formerly touched by 
the water of the river, was bordered by a broad strand of sand 
or clay, covered with enormous masses of drift wood. Large 
banks of sand had made their appearence, and sometimes di¬ 
vided the stream for long distances into two smaller arms. 
The foliage of the woods was wrapped in autumnal dress; 
the yellow and orange of the birch trees was varied by the red 
of the poplar and several smaller trees, intermixed with the 
light green of the larch ( Larix ) and the dark black-green of 
pine and cedar woods. So the view of the landscape was 
everywhere magnificent, and one could look at it for hours, 
even if the ornithological life sometimes was very poor, some¬ 
times for a long while not a bird being seen. We had to 
land twice a day, in order to cook our meals, on a small Os- 
tiakian yurt-place, or where we found it most convenient; 
there was now no want of wood. Every time we went on 
shore we went hunting for some hours, as, fortunately, mos¬ 
quitos were no longer present. The woods sometimes are 
impenetrable, so thick is the growth of the trees, the multi¬ 
tude of broken trees and twigs. Generally the interior of 
the woods was silent, although we observed more birds than 
when we went down the river. At that time the birds were 
breeding, and so hid themselves more in the immense scrub 
and thickets, and were less visible than now, when they 
had more or less united in flocks preparatory to migration. 
We observed nearly all the birds we had seen on the trip 
down, except the Swallows and the Cuckoo, which had gone 
already. The call of the latter we had heard up to the 
