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CHAPTEE XYI. 



The Song-birds of Norway. The Wagtails. The Titmice. The Larks. 

 The Pipits. 



THE " Sylviadse," by which birds of sylvan habits and 

 warblers are meant, are common in various parts of 

 Norway ; several of them are found during the summer 

 months in Lapland. The song of birds is an unusually 

 pleasant sound in this land of solitudes ; and during 

 the short Norwegian summer, when the sun does not 

 set beneath the horizon, the birds appear to sing all 

 the night through ; the note of all singing-birds in 

 this country, however, does not seem to be so sweet 

 as in more southern climes. It may be added, that 

 the song of birds is not heard here until very late in 

 the spring, and very little in the autumn. The fact is, 

 that nearly all the warblers migrate from Norway to- 

 wards the end of August or very early in September. 

 The northern nightingale (Sylvia lusdnia, Nilsson) 

 arrives in the neighbourhood of Christiania in the 

 middle of May, and migrates in the beginning of 

 September ; its Norwegian name is nordlig natter gall, 

 or northern nightingale. It appears to be a different 

 bird from the nightingale (Philomela lusdnia] that 



