38 AQUILA CHRYSAETUS. 



and Ludwig for the place. We reached Keimio-niemi about 11 a.m., 

 left our deer there, and took to skidor ^ After crossing the arm of 

 the lake to the east of the promontory, we began to ascend the hill, 

 Heiki showing us the tall trees near the top where the nest was. It 

 was a long and difficult climb — in many places an affair of hands and 

 knees, as the suakdt ^ would not hold. At last Heiki pointed out the 

 tree, about twenty paces off j and the bird, with a spring, tumbled out 

 of the nest over the valley. The cock showed himself on the wing 

 directly afterwards. The wliite in the middle of the wing above, and 

 on the proximal half of the tail, was very conspicuous in both birds. 



Once the cock flew near the nest, and disappeared. The tree was a 

 Scotch Fir (one of the thickest), about two feet in diameter, or nearly 

 so ; thick branches at convenient distances for climbing ; perhaps 

 thirty-four feet high ; the nest twenty feet from the ground, touching 

 the bole, but supported by branches. The situation noble. The nest 

 just so as to be on a level with the top of the hill, or a little above it 

 when the snow melts. A grand view over Jeris-jarwi, and so on to 

 Ollos-tunturi and Muoniovara westerly. I climbed up and called out 

 the good news to those below, " There is one egg." It lay on the off 

 side of the nest, near the edge of the large well-marked hollow. I 

 carefully packed it up in the tin, and put in its place an egg of Anser 

 minutus I had prepared, written upon, filled with tallow, and the end 

 stopped with sealing-wax. The nest was of great vertical thickness, 

 perhaps seven feet, mended from year to year; the sticks of small 

 size ; the platform by no means wide, lined with living sprigs of Scotch 

 Fir and a little lupu (" tree-hair ") — nothing else. A small quantity 

 of old snow was still clinging to the twigs on the side next the slope of 

 the hill. The foundation of the nest I guessed to be about four years 

 old ; perhaps it was more. I transferred the egg to another box in 

 Toras-sieppi, whilst I took Heiki to look if there was anything in the 

 Jua-rowa nest ; but it had not been disturbed since we were there on 

 the 6th*. Opening the box on the following morning, I found the 



^ [Snow-skates. — Ed.] 



* 6 April, 1857, 1 went with a man to the Golden Eagle's nest in Jua-rowa by 

 Sarki-jar%vi, whence he obtained an eg^ in April 1856, subsequently sold at Mr. 

 Stevens's (Lot 8, 23 February, 1858) to Mr. Braikenridge. A bird was killed from 

 this nest in 1854, whose head and sternum Mr. A. Newton took with him to 

 England [Osteoth. Newt. MS. Cat. No. 256, b.], and whose tail is amongst my 

 skins [WoU. Don. No. 99]. This rowa is visible from my windows at Muonio- 

 vara, over the south-west shoulder of Ollos-tuntiiri. The snow, about two feet 

 deep, was so softened in the middle of the day as to make the climbing of the 

 steep hill comparatively easy. It is covered with Scotch Fir-trees to the top, where, 

 however, they are dwarf j but the nest was in a good-sized one, and so far below 

 the crest of the hill that I coidd easily see into it. The tree scarcely differs from 



