174 Mr. A. C. Chapman's Birds' -Nesting 



Coming home that night I flushed a brace of Wigeon off the 

 small piece of water near our house^ where I had killed the 

 mature (^ake before : the unfortunate duck lost her husband 

 again, and I found he was half moulted to summer plumage. 



June 18th, We found our first nest of the Blue-throated 

 Warbler {Cyanecula suecica) to-day, with seven fresh eggs. 

 It was placed on a dry bank of moss, much concealed, and 

 was constructed entirely of fine dry grass, with a thick foun- 

 dation of moss. The female, which was very tame, had a 

 white throat, with a little blue at the edges and a touch of 

 red and blue on the breast. All the male Bluethroats which 

 I saw had the red spot on the throat, A Brambling's nest 

 contained seven fresh eggs to-day ; and a Raven which I shot 

 w^as in full moult in all the wing-feathers, except the quills, 

 which had been renewed, and the feathers on the neck and 

 head, which were also new. 



Coming along the edge of the Tana I found a nest and 

 four eggs of the Shore-Lark (Otocorys alpestris). The nest 

 was within ten yards of the river-side, placed in a hole 

 scratched in the sandy ground near the bank. It was close 

 in to Pulmak, and 1 must have passed the place dozens of 

 times before, but even now I did not see the bird. Two 

 Laps, Trinus, and I were standing wondering where the 

 owner of the nest could be, when we suddenly caught sight of 

 her, squatting on the ground at our very feet, her head turned 

 towards us and her little black horns distinctly visible. The 

 nest was made exclusively of dry white broad-bladed grasses. 

 The eggs were of a yellowish colour, not unlike those of our 

 Yellow Wagtail. It is strange that this bird should nest 

 in such very different localities, for I afterwards found them, 

 evidently breeding, on the bare fell-tops overgrown with 

 stunted lichens and mosses, and strewn with boulders and 

 patches of snow. A Lap brought me in to-night five eggs of 

 what he called the " Hauga,''-' i. e. Long-tailed Duck {Harelda 

 glacialis) . The nest was placed on the river-bank just opposite 

 Pulmak, and as there was no down, I concluded slie could 

 not have laid her full complement of eggs. Reed- Buntings 

 seemed common bv the side of some fell-lakes which we 



