34 
to tree, and at one moment hunt for insects among the lower 
branches overgrown with beard-lichen,* and at another moment 
for berries on the ground. Everything eatable is good, and as 
variable as its diet is the voice, which at one moment has clear 
flute-like notes, and at the next is harsh, like that of its relation, 
the Common Jay; a curious bird, which in its life-history and 
habits nearly resembles a gigantic rusty-red Tit-mouse, equally 
inquisitive, but with something mysterious about it, and vanishing 
as it came, suddenly and noiselessly. 
A well-known winter-visitor in our lowlands, also has here, in 
the northern-most conifer forests, its home and its nesting place. 
This is the Waxwing (Ampelis garrulus); vagabond and undecided 
in its habits as it always is, it may in certain years be found 
resident at various points in the interior of Finmarken, whilst in 
other years it is entirely invisible. For its nesting places it 
selects the most desolate tracts, especially where willow scrub 
occurs interspersed in the conifer forests; but the whole summer 
through it is silent and difficult to discover, which explains why 
an acquaintance with its breeding habits has been so compara- 
tively lately acquired. They do not wait long after the young 
are fledged, but retire in flocks towards the south, only a few 
remaining behind to spend the winter in their native land. 
As an immigrant from the south of late years, must be men- 
tioned the Common Sparrow, which has now reached up as far as 
Oxfjord, to the south of Hammerfest, whilst it otherwise seems 
to be absent from Finmarken. Its nearest relation, the Tree- 
Sparrow (Passer montanus), which strikingly resembles the Common 
Sparrow, has on the contrary a wider extension, and is, where it 
settles itself, generally confounded with it. In 1885 I found it 
even established in the imposing walls, which protect the most 
northern fortress in the world.t 
The Dipper also (Cinclus aquaticus) occurs by all the small 
swift-running rivers which are not frozen up in the winter, 
right up to the Arctic Ocean. The northern race of this bird 
is scarcely distinguishable by any constant marks from those 
which inhabit the water-shed of central Germany, or the moun- 
tain brooks of the Pyrenees; the extent of the brown belt 
* Usnea barbata. + Viz. : Vard6hus.— 7razs/. 
