WAXWING. 531 



the sides, as the nests of many birds are supported. Of 

 six nests, four were in small Spruces, one in a good-sized 

 Scotch fir, and one in a Birch all placed at a height of 

 from 6 to 12 feet above the ground. The tree in several 

 instances was unhealthy, thin and scraggy in its branches, 

 to which there hung a good deal of hair lichen ; and the 

 nest seems generally much exposed, though from its resem- 

 blance to the lichen hanging near, it might escape the eye. 

 The nests found were in parts of the forest considerably 

 open, once or twice on the side of low hills, near a river, or 

 with an undergrowth of dwarf swamp-loving shrubs. But 

 at present we have scarcely enough examples to show that 

 there is a preference for any particular kind of ground." 



In the summer of 1857 the Waxwing seems to have been 

 still more rarely distributed in Lapland than it had been in 

 the preceding year. Wolley, in spite of every exertion, was 

 unable to set eyes on a living bird. In vain he wandered 

 through the woods and scarcely slept. He took a nest 

 which had been forsaken a day or two before, but its eggs 

 by some unknown means had been destroyed so fast as they 

 were laid. His army of collectors got for him only eight 

 eggs a nest of five taken on an island at the mouth of the 

 Kemi river having been intercepted by a Finnish traveller 

 to whom the finder sold it for the Museum at Helsingfors. 

 But in 1858 the state of things was very different. An 

 enormous number of Waxwings settled for the breeding- 

 season throughout the greater part of the district which had 

 hitherto been the scene of Wolley 's researches, and his 

 collectors found nearly 150 nests producing no fewer than 

 666 eggs, while about a score more were obtained by a 

 Prussian dealer who happened that year to be in the 

 country. This same summer saw an Englishman accom- 

 plish what Wolley only partially succeeded in doing. Mr. 

 Dresser found a small colony of Waxwings on an island in 

 the Baltic near Uleaborg, which prior information would 

 have led any one to suppose was beyond the breeding-range 

 of the species, and with his own hands took a nest, an egg 

 and two young birds. In 1859, the Waxwing bred, but not 



