40 TRAVELS OF A NATURALIST 



wood we took, or had taken for us, in a short time, 54 

 eggs of Fieldfares. Eleven nests we took had four, five, 

 three, five, four, five, five, five, three, five, and six eggs each. 



The boys here were very intelligent (and understood 

 our Norsk well!), and we were in luck to get their aid 

 the only day in the week on which they do not work. 

 They brought us a couple of nests (our first) of White 

 Wagtails, taken from stone dykes, one of which with six 

 eggs we saved. The nests were of cow's hair, and in all 

 respects similar to that of our own variety. In one of 

 them the eggs had been incubated about a w^eek; in the 

 other they were hard set, and we did not blow them. 



They showed us a colony of Terns (Common or 

 Arctic ?) on an island in the river, but only one pair of 

 eggs were found. A pair of Common Gulls are also going 

 to breed there. 



They told us that there are Eagles in the mountains 

 above, and many Bears. By 'Eagles,' i.e., Orne, Kough- 

 legged Buzzards are usually meant. 



The inn at Blaaflaten is small and not very refined, 

 but pretty clean, and the people very civil. 



The boys in the evening played on an accordion and 

 danced on the grass — the Halling-dance — in which, after 

 spinning round not ungracefully, they spring from the 

 ground, describe a circle higher than their head with one 

 foot, and land again exactly on the spot from whence 

 they sprang. 



We went early to roost, not having been to bed last 

 night. 



June 5. 



Monday, the 5th of June — a very warm day — we went 

 down to the river, and I shot one of the Terns, which 

 turned out to be the Common Tern, and as we saw all 

 the rest of the colony well, we came to the conclusion 

 that it was a colony of that species. There were at" the 



