S76 Messrs. W. E. Clarke and J. Backhouse — Autumn 



made during a season regarded by the inhabitants as a more 

 than usually fine one. 



We were both surprised and disappointed not to have seen 

 the Northern Wren {Trogloihjtes borealis) in Iceland; for 

 although very locally distributed in the country^ yet since it 

 occurs in the brushwood of the Fnjoska, we had fully expected 

 to find it at Hallormsta-Sr. It does, however, occur in the 

 Lagarfljotj for our friend Dr. Kjerulf, no mean ornithologist, 

 told us that it was not uncommon about the farmhouses, where 

 it is chiefly seen in the early morning. From this gentleman 

 we also learnt that a Snowy Owl was shot in the forest at 

 Hallormsta'Sr during the late summer of 1882, and that 

 several others Avere observed there about the same time, no 

 doubt a family party from a nest somewhere in the neigh- 

 bourhood. Mr. Gunnarsson had seen the bird shot, when 

 still in tlie flesh, and described it as being almost entirely 

 white with only a few black spots. Another bird, the occur- 

 rence of which the Doctor considered worthy of notice, was 

 a Heron, also shot in the Lagarfljot valley, in the autumn 

 of ]88.2. 



During our stay at ValthjofstaSr we had related to us by 

 Mrs. Gunnarsson's mother some reminiscences of the Great 

 Auk. This old lady, Mrs, Simondson by name, now in her 

 seventy-ninth year and in full possession of all her mental 

 faculties, informed us, through her daughter, that she well 

 remembered many " Geir-fugr^ being brought into Eeykjavik, 

 some of which she had seen alive, and well described the 

 upright posture assumed by them. She especially remem- 

 bered one occasion, when she "was grown up and was 

 at least twenty years of age,^^ the mail-boat making a large 

 capture, and she herself saw a '' sackful " on board. These 

 were obtained no doubt while the vessel was becalmed off the 

 islets of the S.W. coast, where the species was by no means 

 uncommon early in the present century. 



The specific identity of the Ptarmigan of Iceland, Lagoims 

 mpestris (Gmelin), has been a matter of some uncertainty. 

 Professor Newton in his useful contribution to Mr. Baring 

 Gould's ' Iceland, Its Scenes and Sages ' (1863), says of this 



