Il 
The nearest relation of the last-named species is the Brent 
(Bernicla brenta). This goose never nests on the continent of 
Europe, although the young birds now and then spend the 
summer with us, and it is a well-known visitor to the country 
at migration times. 
In the spring Brent Geese push in under the Naze (Lindesnes) 
on a fixed day, towards the end of May, in large skeins, and 
more follow on the succeeding days; in rows as straight as a line 
they sweep compactly over the surface of the sea along the whole 
coast until they reach the outermost north-westerly skerries. 
Then the crowds sweep further afield, so as to fetch their nesting- 
places in Spitzbergen and Novaya Zemlya; and the sealers and 
Arctic travellers who have stood upon the northern point of 
Spitzbergen have seen them wandering yet further over the snowy 
sea, seeking still more northerly archipelagoes, which as yet no 
human being has trodden. 
Tromso offers a good opportunity for observing bird-life as 
it exists on the islands which fringe the Arctic coast, being one 
of the lower and more thickly inhabited of them, situated nearly 
in the 7oth deg., N. Lat., and bearing Finmarken’s capital city 
of the same name. In that town there exists a veritable Arctic 
Museum, whose industrious scientists have for fifteen years pub- 
lished their ‘‘Troms6é Museum’s Annual,” the most northerly 
scientific journal in the world. 
This pretty little island, which extends like a green knoll 
within a circle of snow-clad mountains, is thickly over-grown 
with birch-wood, alternating with tracts of marsh and some 
cultivated fields. Although the former richly varied animal_ 
life has of late years somewhat decreased on account of the in- 
creased area under cultivation, still a stroll along the gardens,* 
with which nearly every house outside the town is provided, and 
in the surrounding birch-groves, will in a short time make us 
acquainted with several very characteristic birds, which have 
their place of summer resort here. 
* Where in particular the stately Heraclewm panaces with its unusual luxuriance 
excites the traveller’s admiration. 
