30 



especially in the warm sunshine, belongs to the Siberian Willow- 

 Wren (Phylloscopus borealis). Originally known in Europe through 

 a solitary individual, shot during the autumnal migration at 

 Heligoland, in 1854, it was later on found several times in 

 North Russia, but was unknown to the west of Archangel until 

 the year 1876, when the author met with it resident at Staburnaes, 

 in Porsanger. Its proper home is the whole of North Siberia, 

 where its distribution extends to the east as far as Bering's 

 Straits and Alaska, consequently through about 180 of longi- 

 tude. In Finmarken it is a recent immigrant, and its migration 

 therefore does not pass southwards along the Baltic provinces, 

 like that of our other arctic small birds, but it migrates across the 

 large river basins of Siberia in order to reach down to the 

 Pacific coast, China and India, where its chief winter home is. If 

 one could suppose that there dwelt a yearning for its native land 

 in this little bird's breast, then an individual which picked its 

 food, at the New Year, in the bamboo thickets by the Chinese 

 villages or at Malacca, might recollect how it, some months 

 previously, tried its wings for the first time in the birch-covered 

 slopes close by North Cape, and there it would return when the 

 spring calls it. 



The song is monotonous, as with all the Willow- Wrens, and 

 consists only of a single note, zi-zi-zi, which is repeated quickly a 

 dozen times over ; then follows a short stop, which in the height 

 of the singing time lasts half a minute, after which follows the 

 same strain anew, and so ad infinitum. This fervid song, unlike 

 that of all other European songbirds, acts electrically upon the 

 ornithologist, who knows that the life-history of the performer 

 during the nesting season has hitherto been unknown to natural- 

 ists. 



Until quite late years only one nest of this species had been 

 found, namely, by Mr. Seebohm at Egasca (by the Jenisej), in 

 July, 1877. That nest contained eggs ; in July, 1885, the author 

 found at M three nests, all with six or seven young. 



These latter nests were placed at the foot of a tree stem, or 

 by a tree root, where the forest was thickest, and were well 

 concealed by the flowering Cornus sttecica, Veronica longifolia, 

 geraniums, and Melica nutans. As with the other Willow- Wrens 



