MIGRATORY BIRDS. 271 



piper,* the Red-Shank, the Wood Sandpiper, the Com r 

 mon Sandpiper, the Einged Dottrel, the Lesser Ringed 

 Dottrel, and prohably many others that have been over- 

 looked. I may here mention as a somewhat singular 

 circumstance that early in June, 1862, I shot a remark- 

 ably fine specimen of the Knot, in full nuptial dress, on 

 a small island in the Wenern. Is it possible that 

 this bird, the breeding habits of which seem entirely 

 unknown to naturalists, had visited our district for the 

 purpose of nesting ? 



Ronnum being situated on the banks of the River 

 Gotha, the sole outlet of the Great Lake Wenern, and 

 only distant, as the crow flies, some twenty miles from 

 the western coast of Sweden, and consequently on the 

 high road, so to say, of the migratory birds ; we were 

 moreover visited, during spring and fall, by almost every 

 species of water-fowl that nests in high northern latitudes. 

 Swans were very numerous, particularly during the 

 autumn, and an odd one occasionally passed the winter 

 in the rapids of the Gotha. Wild geese t were also very 

 common in the fall of the year, especially on some low- 

 lying lands, ten to fifteen miles to the north-east of 

 Wenersborg, where they usually remained for several 

 weeks. No later than last September I myself saw 

 fully two hundred of these birds congregated in a 



: ' The Green Sandpiper, it is now, I believe, pretty generally admitted, 

 I needs at times, at least, in trees and in the old or deserted nests of other 

 birds. I myself can testify to such being the fact, having on one occasion 

 found its eggs, four in number, in an apparently new nest of a Thrush, built 

 in a young spruce pine, at about four feet from the ground. 



^ A curious notion would seem to exist in parts of Scandinavia, in 

 respect to these birds. " As on the breaking up of the frost in the spring," 

 says Nordholm, when speaking of llVlsingland, " swans and wild geese are 

 always in company, and one much less in size than the other, it is the 

 belief of many people that geese are no oilier than the young of swans." 



