AN ARCTIC RESIDENCE 247 



moved up to their summer home. On the coast 

 some Eiders were always to be seen, as well as a few 

 Sea-Eagles. One day in July, as I was painting 

 on a hillside above the sea, I heard a yelping note, 

 and, looking down, I saw an old Sea-Eagle, closely 

 followed by her brown young one. She carried a 

 brilliant scarlet fish (Oer or Rode-fisk) in her claws, 

 and kept lifting it as if to entice her offspring 

 forward in its flight. On another occasion I heard 

 a loud rush of wings and, looking upwards, saw a 

 Golden Eagle pursuing a Sea-Eagle through the 

 air, the latter twisting and turning to avoid its 

 more active enemy, and in doing so it dropped 

 what I took to be a large fish into the sea. Sea- 

 Eagles often passed outside the harbour and along 

 the coast, but they were not nearly so numerous 

 in northern Norway as I had seen them twenty 

 years before. Only on the outer islands do they 

 seem to be holding their own, for there they breed 

 on inaccessible cliffs, whilst on the mainland every 

 man's hand and gun is against them. The bird 

 of northern Norway is the Raven, and this clever 

 marauder somehow manages to make a living even 

 in winter, when all other birds, except a few rap- 

 torials, the two species of Ripa, and the Magpie, 

 would starve. I do not think that the Raven 

 becomes adult until it is two or three years old, 

 and consequently we see large flocks of immatures at 

 all seasons living on garbage, fish, or the dead and 

 wounded creatures its sharp eyes may discover. I 

 noticed that, even in Hammerfest, where the 

 species is so abundant, certain pairs always took 

 up certain beats and drove off all trespassers. 

 There were three pairs of these old residents in rock 



