APPENDIX: NO. L. 79 
chiefly in the woods. 8S. brachyotus breeds round about in the 
meadows, but particularly in open ground in swamps and mosses. 
“ Falco lagopus 1s dispersed both on mountains and in woods, but is 
most common on mountains. 
“ Lestris was only on the mountains, but even far from the sea as 
on Ounas-tunturi several miles from Muonioniska. 
“The places where they bred or laid and hatched their eggs were 
as follows :— 
** Strix nyctea is said to lay its eggs on the small knolls which are 
found in the valleys or levels among the mountains. It frequently 
attacks any one who approaches it. A Lapp boy doubtfully asked 
him whether it really was a bird. 
‘Strix lapponica, as reported by several tr ustworthy people, who 
had seen its nest, lays its eggs in the hollow at the top of a stump 
of a broken off tree. 
“ Strix funerea and 8. tengmalmi, like other Owls, build no nest, but 
lay their eggs in holes of trees, and very often in the egg-boxes 
which the people hang up for Anas clangula to lay in. Old and 
dirty boxes are preferably chosen by the Owls. These birds are very 
much hated in consequence of this habit of theirs, and it was no 
doubt S. funerea that Linneus and others have seen hung up 
in terrorem by the side of the egg-boxes. 8. brachyotus lays its eggs 
on dry spots in marshes or on other open places. It has a remar kable 
habit, presumably when it is in fear or anxiety on account of. its 
nest or young, of suddenly flinging itself down on the ground in a 
place where it is concealed from the eye of any one approaching, 
and screaming like a woman in the utmost terror or distress. It is 
without doubt this circumstance which has given rise to a story that 
he heard among the Lapps of Karesuando concerning the ‘ Quod-al- 
vis” They say it is a supernatural bird which now and again makes 
its dread visit to their camps. They say that it darts down to a place 
whence a tent has lately been taken away, strikes its claw into a rag 
or a piece of skin which has belonged to one of the family, flies 
away with it and again darts down, but this time on the place 
where the owner cf the rag will be buried. There it screams and 
wails like one in the agony of death, just in the same way as the 
person concerned shall one day scream and wail. ‘The ‘rag’ was 
probably a mouse which the Owl was bearing to its young. Such a 
‘ Quod-al-vis,’ shortly before his first visit to Karesuando, had been 
in the deserted churchyard at Enontekis. 
“In the season to which his observations especially refer, the 
greatest part of the birds also went away after the Lemmings had 
disappeared. Strix brachyotus migrated southward in flocks when 
the winter came and has hardly “been seen since. Falco lagopus 
did the same, but S. nyctea kept in the birch-regions until the days 
became longer in the following spring. Afterwards the Lapps found 
some of them dead, and during an excursion to the Norwegian 
mountains early in the summer he did not see a single example, 
