of the Breeding of the Waxwing. 97 



when one thinks of the uncertainty of getting it again. At the 

 same time I should tell you the Sardio lads found a nest which 

 they believed to have been a last yearns Korwa-rastas. On this 

 river no one has seen the bird of late years, and very few know 

 it at all. One old fellow, Nalio Aaron, says he saw one north 

 of Nalima in 1853, and another in 1854. Martin Pekka showed 

 the picture to many people in the Sodankyla and Kittila districts, 

 but he could not make out that the bird was at all known, and 

 in all his journey, when he kept a good look-out, he did not 

 see one ; so that even this year it seems to have come very 

 sparingly and locally — ^just in the district north, east, and south 

 of Pallas-tunturi. In 1853 I told you of a boy, Sieppi's Johan, 

 who described a nest of birds he had found some years ago, 

 which, from my interpreter's version, I thought might be that 

 of the Waxwing, This boy, on being shown a skin, said he had 

 never before seen the bird. 



" It is a relief to think that I am not bound to go to Russia 

 next spi'ing unless I like it, as I before felt that I was. I almost 

 think I may leave the unbounded riches of the Nova Zembla 

 coasts and of the north of Siberia — their Steller's Duck, Curlew 

 Sandpiper, Little Stint, Knot, Sanderling, Grey Plover, Grey 

 Phalarope — to younger adventurers. 



^ -^ ■^ ■^ ■^ ■^ 



" Almost every day (and it is now the sixth since that of my 

 arrival here) Ludwig has 'told me the whole story of the Siden- 

 svans' nest, and I am never tired of hearing it : — How the season 

 was very backward; how, in their expedition, he and Piko 

 Heiki were getting very much out of spirits at the little success 

 they met with. How he saw this bird in the sunshine. How, 

 when at last the nest was found, he could scarcely beheve his 

 eyes ; how he went to it again and again, each time convinced 

 when at the spot, but believing it all a dream as soon as he was 

 at a distance. The rising and falling of the crest of the bird, its 

 curious song or voice — all he is eager to tell over and over again; 

 and I have the fullest version, with all the ' I said,^ ' Heiki said,' 

 ' Michel said,' ' Ole said,' &c. These Sardio lads, as you have 

 heard me say formerly, have a good knowledge of the small bii'ds 

 of their neighbourhood, but they are none of them sure whether 



A'OL. III. * H 



