18 EARLY INTEREST IN NATURAL HISTORY 



spent on deck in noting birds new to them and in admira- 

 tion of the fantastic beauty of the Lofotens. At Ham- 

 merfest they were delayed by gales and snowstorms for 

 twelve days, which they spent in the very uncomfortable 

 inn of that unattractive town. On June 16 they passed 

 the North Cape, and two days later, after visiting Homo, 

 which was then hostile territory (being in the Province 

 of Archangel), they landed at Vadso. On the 19th 

 they were joined by Wolley, who had just returned from 

 his expedition to Lake Enare and the Patsjoki, where he 

 had discovered the nest of the Hooper.* He brought 

 with him a couple of young Sea-Eagles alive and a train 

 of Jays and Grouse, as well as a mass of bones, skins, 

 feathers, down, and so forth. Beside the precious 

 Swan's eggs, he had brought very many more, and the 

 children of Vadso were waiting for him with all the eggs 

 they had collected for him during the season, so the three 

 men set up blowing eggs until five o'clock in the morning, 

 and it is not surprising to learn that the baker's house 

 (where they stayed) seemed to have been turned into a 

 poulterer's shop. In a day or two lodgings were found 

 for Wolley's live birds, and the party then set off in boats 

 up the Varanger Fjord, where they remained for a 

 month. They did not attain the principal object of 

 their search, the breeding place of Buffon's Skua, but 

 they succeeded in finding the nests of many rare and 

 interesting birds. Newton and Simpson were the first 

 Englishmen to find and identify the eggs of the Red- 

 throated Pipit (Anthus cervinus), and they obtained many 

 others that were new to them, such as Red-necked 

 Phalarope, Temminck's Stint, Bluethroat, Velvet Scoter, 

 Turnstone, Shore Lark, and others. They made an 

 expedition to the Tana River, where Simpson caught 



* J.W.'s very graphic account of this discovery may be read in " Ootheca 

 Wolley ana," vol. ii. p. 495. 





