FALCO GYRFALCO. 89 



except just on the face of the rock, and first tried it from above, 

 but it seemed scarcely practicable. Then I went below, and, with 

 the Lapp to support my feet, and Ludwig to give me additional help 

 with a pole, I managed to climb up. Just at the last bit I had to 

 rest some time. Then I drew myself, and saw the four eggs to 

 my right hand, looking small in the middle of a large nest. Again 

 I waited to get steady for the final reach. I had only a bit of stone 

 to stand upon, not bigger than a walnut, and frozen to the surface of 

 the ledge, which sloped outwards. I put two of the eggs into my 

 cap, and two into my pocket, and cautiously withdrew. The nest 

 appeared to have been quite freshly made, and therefore by the bird 

 herself. The sticks were thick, certainly more so than those used 

 by Ravens or Buzzards, and, unlike the nests of the latter, which 

 I saw the next day, they were barkless and bleached. The only 

 lining was a bundle or two of coarsish dry grass. As I returned, I 

 touched the eggs on a point of rock above me, luckily without 

 injuring them. I handed them down in a glove at the end of a 

 pole, which the Lapp improvised after the fashion of a church col- 

 lecting-bag; and when they were placed in a safe corner, my feet 

 were put in the right places, and I descended in safety. I had luckily 

 brought a box with hay, and on 12tli May had the eggs safe at Muo- 

 niovaara. There were young inside, perhaps an inch-and-a-half long, 

 with heads as big as horse-beans. A bird, probably of the preceding 

 year, had been caught in a Grouse-snare at the end of March or 

 beginning of April, and I got its skin [Woll. Don. No. 57] and 

 breast-bone [Osteoth. Newt. MS. Cat. No. 369, a]. 



§ 193. T/iree.— West Finmark, 16th April, 1857. 



Ludwig told me this was Lassi's nest, and he desired the other 

 Lapp, Pongo, not to touch ; but as he was obliged to leave the neigh- 

 bourhood before Ludwig arrived, Pongo took it as above. Lassi 

 blew the eggs the following day, and delivered them to Ludwig 

 shortly afterwards. It is the same nest I took in 1854 [§ 192], 

 occupied in 1855 and 1856 by Ravens. The eggs were fresh, and, 

 Ludwig thought, not all laid. 



^ 194. One. — Nyimakka, Enontekis Lappmark, 7 June, 1854. 

 " J. W. ipse." 



This egg I took as above, out of a nest in which were three young. 

 Petari took me to the rock at which he had been a week or two 



