256 A SPRING AND SUMMER IN LAPLAND. 



they breed in no other part of Sweden ; and on 

 August 18, the last day that I was on the fells, I 

 counted seventeen on the wing, soaring very high 

 over one fell tract ; and the reader may further 

 fancy that they were very common here from the 

 fact that more than fifty nests were destroyed in 

 this district during the spring of 1862. In habits, 

 flight, and appearance, the rough-legged buzzard 

 much resembles its congener, the common buzzard, 

 from which it may be always distinguished when 

 in the air by the white root of the tail. Its cry is 

 a loud " ka haa" (not unlike the melancholy call 

 of the common buzzard), and is in perfect har- 

 mony with the wild, lonely fell-tracts which it 

 frequents. The period of breeding must extend 

 over a very long space of time, for I observed 

 downy young ones in a nest on August 6. I do 

 not think this bird is so sluggish in its habits as 

 the common buzzard; and, although doubtless 

 lemming and fell mice form their principal food, I 

 am certain that they destroy many ptarmigan, for 

 I have seen the ground surrounding the nest 

 thickly strewed with the feathers of the ptarmigan. 



Of the harriers I am not certain that I saw 

 one in Lapland, although I fancied once I saw a 

 pair of the marsh harriers flying over the river- 

 side at Quickiock. 



The snowy owl (Strix nyctea; "fall uggla," 



