PERISOREUS INFAUSTUS. 487 



back of the hill, picking berries in the shelter and in the sun. For 

 nearly two hours I watched it, apparently little troubled by my 

 presence, yet evidently remembering T was there. I even followed 

 it from spot to spot. At last it flew, quicker than usual, into a tree 

 near, and so in the direction of another. I followed as quick as I 

 could, but it was out of sight directly, and I searched for a great 

 distance in vain. The next morning I went to the hill with Anton 

 on skider (the day before I was without them), and after waiting a 

 little we saw a Kuukainen arrive from the same direction as yesterday, 

 on which occasion the bird had first shewn itself by flying past me 

 and alighting a little before us, and (as it afterwards appeared) a little 

 after I had passed the nest. 



We set to work to watch the bird carefully. Soon another came 

 up, nearly from the same direction, and after feeding for a few 

 minutes flew towards us, alighted close to our heads, and then shot 

 off^, so that Anton could not get to an open view in time to catch 

 a sight of it. We searched long, and for an hour or two, at a good 

 distance, not beginning to look in so open a wood as that near us. 

 As we were on our return, Anton found a nest in a stubby or stunted 

 Scotch flr with a good deal of luppu (tree-hair), some seven or ten 

 feet from the ground. It was, as usual, made underneath of a good 

 mass of white-looking sticks, and Anton, on climbing up, found an 

 old white Grouse-feather in it. It was not in a place we should have 

 expected to find it, and from several sides was well concealed. 



Coming back to the hill, just as we were starting for home, after 

 in vain calling to the Gos-Hawk, as indeed we had done before, 

 Kukki came up, and I determined to watch it well. I sent Anton 

 on its track, and began a careful observation. After ten minutes or 

 a quarter of an hour, Anton called out : '' There's the nest, and the 

 bird on it." It was in a tree just before him, not more than three 

 yards from where he had been standing, between him and me. He 

 accidentally looked at it, and hardly thought anything of it, till he 

 saw the bird sitting. The tree was a young Scotch fir, quite open, 

 and the nest was supported, though imperfectly, by two strong 

 branches, as it lay against the bole of the tree, on the south side of 

 which it was, being on the west of the commencement of the hill. 

 I climbed up, the nest being six or seven feet from the ground. 

 The bird sat like a Thrush, or other bird, with its beak in the air, 

 and noAV slightly open, its feathers at the sides well spread out. It 

 did not ofl'er to leave, and I stroked it on the back and put my hand 

 under it ; and it was not till I distinctly felt the young and the egg. 



