34 



to tree, and at one moment hunt for insects among the lower 

 branches overgrown with beard-lichen, * and at another moment 

 for berries on the ground. Everything eatable is good, and as 

 variable as its diet is the voice, which at one moment has clear 

 flute-like notes, and at the next is harsh, like that of its relation, 

 the Common Jay; a curious bird, which in its life-history and 

 habits nearly resembles a gigantic rusty-red Tit-mouse, equally 

 inquisitive, but with something mysterious about it, and vanishing 

 as it came, suddenly and noiselessly. 



A well-known winter-visitor in our lowlands, also has here, in 

 the northern-most conifer forests, its home and its nesting place. 

 This is the Waxwing (Ampelis garrulus); vagabond and undecided 

 in its habits as it always is, it may in certain years be found 

 resident at various points in the interior of Finmarken, whilst in 

 other years it is entirely invisible. For its nesting places it 

 selects the most desolate tracts, especially where willow scrub 

 occurs interspersed in the conifer forests ; but the whole summer 

 through it is silent and difficult to discover, which explains why 

 an acquaintance with its breeding habits has been so compara- 

 tively lately acquired. They do not wait long after the young 

 are fledged, but retire in flocks towards the south, only a few 

 remaining behind to spend the winter in their native land. 



As an immigrant from the south of late years, must be men- 

 tioned the Common Sparrow, which has now reached up as far as 

 Oxfjord, to the south of Hammerfest, whilst it otherwise seems 

 to be absent from Finmarken. Its nearest relation, the Tree- 

 Sparrow (Passer montanus), which strikingly resembles the Common 

 Sparrow, has on the contrary a wider extension, and is, where it 

 settles itself, generally confounded with it. In 1885 I found it 

 even established in the imposing walls, which protect the most 

 northern fortress in the world. f 



The Dipper also (Cinclus aquaticus) occurs by all the small 

 swift-running rivers which are not frozen up in the winter, 

 right up to the Arctic Ocean. The northern race of this bird 

 is scarcely distinguishable by any constant marks from those 

 which inhabit the water-shed of central Germany, or the moun- 

 tain brooks of the Pyrenees ; the extent of the brown belt 



* Usnea barbata. t Viz. : Vardohus. Transl. 



