66 PANDION HALIiEETUS. 



year got an Osprey's nest, and shot the bird, from a loch in Ross- 

 shire, where time out of mind it had bred. 



§ 86. Three.— M\]^\2iSim, East Bothnia, 25 May, 1854. " J. W. 

 ipse.'' 



These eggs were taken by myself from a nest about seven fathoms 

 from the ground, on the top of a tree, a Scotch fir, still feebly living, 

 near Kangas-jarwi, on the Muonio-alusta side of the lake. One bird 

 was seen to leave the nest when we were still far away, and the two 

 flew round, whilst we were there, at a good distance, seldom crying. 

 Under the tree was a great mass of sticks — an old nest which had 

 fallen to the ground. I caused myself to be concealed in a heap of 

 fir-branches ; and it was not long before one of the old birds came 

 and hovered for a moment just over the nest, then went away, and 

 came back straight into it. Ludwig and Heiki returning a little, 

 she rose on my side. This was repeated a second time, and I then 

 fired just as she left ; and she fell at my feet with four or five shots 

 in her body, and a broken leg*. Another tree being reared by the 

 side of the one already there, I climbed up to the branches, and 

 then it was easy to go to the top. I let down a string for my tin 

 box, and, when I got it, lowered the three beautiful eggs. The 

 nest was made of good-sized sticks, large at the top, lined with tree- 

 hair and moss. The cock bird came rather near, and cried several 

 times. The Saturday before (20th May), Heiki had been up and 

 found only one e^^ in the nest : it was probably the one I have 

 marked with a cross, for this only showed the slightest symptoms of 

 having been sat on. This man, as others do hereabouts, believes that 

 the markings are brought out by incubation. We took the nest a 

 little after midnight — in fact, on the 26th May. 



Heiki visited this nest in 1855, but it had fallen to the ground. 

 He and another man found a new nest on the same hill that year, 

 about a quarter of a mile (Swedish) from the old one. They dis- 

 covered it by a fish lying on the ground, but the nest was scarcely 

 visible : it was a large thick tree, he thinks more than a fathom and 

 a half round, and by measurement more than eleven fathoms high. 



§ 87. Three. — Kangas-jiirwi, East Bothnia, 23 May, 1854. 



Taken by Apoo from the nest he had led me to, 15th May, then 



' [I believe that the skin of this bird was presented by Mr. WoUey to Mr. Fel- 

 kin of Beeston : its sternum he gave to my brother. (Osteoth, Newt. 3IS. Cat. 

 No. l,c.)— Ed.] 



