7632 Birds. 



before my eyes (who has immortalized your old lady correspondent 

 for prophecying a warm and early summer from seeing a wasp on the 

 11th of February), I prognosticate a finer summer and autumn in 

 1861 than we have seen for some years ; although even now I fancy 

 we have more snow in our northern sky, and shall yet have a few 

 more severe night-frosts, for our spring migrants are certainly late ; 

 nor till I see the first yellow wagtail, or hear the glad note of the 

 ortolan bunting, shall I believe that the winter is over. 



The following list will give a pretty correct statement of the time 

 of the arrival of such of our summer migrants as are already here : — 



Feb. 10. Saw the first jackdaw, and a small flock of crows. Some 

 few stragglers, however, had remained with us throughout the winter, 



March 18. Saw male goldeneyes on the river. The females did 

 not appear to come till a fortnight after. 



About March 23. Saw the first buzzard, and a starling. The lark 

 had been here a fortnight. 



On the 25th the golden plover and chaffinches had come. 



March 28. Saw the first kite, the first white wagtail, and heard a 

 robin singing in the evening. Saw a large bat (I fancy the Vesper- 

 tilio discolor) hawking about in the twilight. 



About the second week in April the fieldfares, redwings and 

 bramblings came back, many redpoles and siskins, and (except the 

 green sandpiper, the stock dove, the woodcock, the^common snipe, 

 and the cranes, all of which have been with us for about a fortnight) 

 these are nearly all the spring migrants that I have as yet seen. I 

 have this evening seen the first troop of wild geese (I fancy Brent) 

 pass over northwards, and this is a good sign that the season in Lap- 

 land will soon commence, although probably the steamers will not 

 get up the Bothnia till the middle of May ; but another fortnight will 

 bring many additions to our northern fauna. 



We have had a great many woodpeckers in our forests this year, and 

 more of the three-toed and gray-headed woodpeckers than I can ever 

 remember. Neither of these, however, breed with us. I observed in 

 the severe weather that the woodpeckers here get much into the holes 

 of trees for shelter, and I also observed that the gray-headed wood- 

 pecker much frequents the gable ends of wooden houses and buildings, 

 and is by no means shy. I took the first nest of the great black wood- 

 pecker on the 16th of April, with five eggs. All the birds that breed 

 in holes of trees go to nest early. I got two full nests (six eggs) of the 

 Strix Tengmalmi the second week of April, and about the same time 

 a nest of the brown owl and stockdove (very early for us). I got the 



