WAXWING. 7 
about noon, when a lad called out that he had found the nest ; and there it 
was, about nine feet high on the branch of a spruce. Ludwig succeeded 
in snaring the old bird, a beautiful cock, at the end of five days, and packed 
up the nest, eggs, and bird in a strong box until Wolley’s arrival. Wolley 
writes :—‘‘ You can fancy how eagerly I waited for Ludwig to produce the 
eggs. With a trembling hand he brought them out—but first the nest 
beautifully preserved ; it is made principally of black ‘tree-hair’ (lichen), 
with dried spruce-twigs outside, partially lined with a little sheep’s grass 
and one or two feathers—a large deep nest. The eggs—beautiful !— 
magnificent !!—just the character of the American bird. An indescribable 
glow of colour about them! ..... Almost every day (and it is now 
the sixth since that of my arrival here) Ludwig has told me the whole 
story of the Sidensvan’s 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 the bird in the sunshine; how, when at last the nest was found, 
he could scarcely believe 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. Since Wolley’s great discovery many other nests of the Wax- 
wing have been obtained by various ornithologists. In 1857 Dr. Nylander 
obtained a nest with five eggs from the island of Ajos at the head of the 
Gulf of Bothnia, off the coast of Finland. In 1858 Dresser obtained a 
nest with unfledged young from the island of Sanden, twenty-seven miles 
from Uleaborg, a little to the south of the previous locality. In 1862 
Wheelwright obtained a nest with two eggs near Quickiock ; in 1868 
Nordvi procured its eggs in north-east Norway; and in 1872 Mr. Berlin 
discovered two nests containing eggs in the same district. 
A nest of the Waxwing, which Mr. Nordvi procured for me from 
Muonioniska, is a large and very compact structure. The outside 
diameter is seven inches, and the inside four inches. It is about four 
inches high outside, and nearly two inches deep. The foundation is made 
of twigs of the spruce-fir and reindeer-moss. The nest itself is composed 
of feathers and black hair-lichen, interwoven together with very slender 
twigs and a little moss and inner bark, the feathers being most numerous 
in the lining. Five or six, and occasionally seven, is the number of eggs 
laid. Newton (in whose collection the greater part of the enormous series 
obtained by Wolley still remains) describes them as measuring from 1:11 
to ‘82 in length by ‘73 to ‘64 inch in breadth. He writes :—“ The ground 
is most generally of a delicate sea-green, sometimes fading to French white, 
but very often of a more or less pale olive, and occasionally of a dull 
