20 EARLY INTEREST IN NATJRAL HISTORY 



you and he had enjoyed your trip to Norway so much. 

 I hope you will go again to the North, but pray take my 

 word for it that if you only reach a good high altitude, 

 the further eastward you go tJie more you will get. I beUeve 

 the land of promise for an oologist is in N. Finland 

 between the Kemi River and the White Sea. Anything 

 I can do to further your explorations in that direction 

 you can entirely command. 



East Finmark is nearly as well known as the Scottish 

 Highlands, you might get something new there just as 

 you might in the Highlands, but the chances are greatly 

 against it. Northern Finland is quite an untouched 

 country. 



The Snow Bunting ought to be found without diffi- 

 culty in Scotland. I never had any trouble in marking 

 a bird to her nest.* 



Three years later Harvie-Brown had an opportunity 

 of taking Newton's advice, and planned to go farther 

 east still to the Petchora. 



I am delighted to find that the Petchora scheme is 

 coming off and I envy you not a little. The only species 

 I can add to your prospective bill of fare is Bewick's 

 Swan. That and the Curlew Sandpiper seem to me the 

 most urgent of the desideratissima with which you are 

 likely to fall in, and I would beseech you to spare no 

 trouble about them, and not to be discouraged if you do 

 not get eggs this year, provided you can only ascertain 

 that these species breed there. Remember how WoUey 

 worked for years in faith and was rewarded at last. You 

 will, I am afraid, find it a very hard expedition, and I 

 hope you will not knock up under the miseries of hunger 

 and cold. The Samoieds are now I dare say peaceable 

 enough, but in the days when WoUey was thinking of 

 going to the Petchora they were reported by the Russians 

 to be very savage. I don't know that anything on the 

 fauna of the country has ever been pubhshed, certainly 



♦ Letter to J. A. Harvie-Brown, October 28, 1871. ./ 



