476 



6 



"Mr. Wolley also writes of the same year (1855): — 'This season Ludwig and Anton tried 

 hard with my direction and assistance to find the eggs in Muoniovaara. We put meat in the 

 woods, and watched early and late. Plenty of birds came ; but we could not make out their 

 nests. At last Ludwig found one early in April without eggs. I also examined it. Later in 

 the season the tree was cut down ; so I have not secured the nest*. It was some twenty feet up 

 in a Scotch fir. In May Ludwig found a nest near it with young. He put them in a cage ; but 

 the mother let them out by opening the fastening. This nest is before me. It is made at the 

 bottom of a considerable quantity of old branches, mostly bleached and barkless, and in some 

 cases covered with black lichen, then a lighter-coloured lichen, and on the top feathers with a 

 little hare's down, spider's nests, and so forth. The thicker part of three other nests is here — 

 two from Rowa, and one from Mantuvaara. They are a considerable thickness of feathers, lichen, 

 spider's web, silvery bark (such as is found in Bramblings' nests), &c. The feathers are mostly 

 Capercally and White Willow-Grouse. The Mantuvaara nest is mostly made of cock-Capercally 

 with a few Lapp-Owl's feathers ; and as the latter bird was so scarce last winter, it would almost 

 favour the notion that the feathers had been collected previously. The Mantuvaara nest was 

 sent with an egg, which I have given to Mr. Newton. The same lad found it who sent me the 

 eggs last year.' 



" Besides the six perfect eggs already mentioned as having been obtained in 1855, eight more 

 were brought the same year to Mr. Wolley. In 1856 he did not reach Lapland till too late in 

 the season to take a nest himself; but several were found by his collectors. In 1857 more were 

 found, one of which with its three eggs he sent by Dr. Nylander to the Museum at Helsingfors ; 

 and on the 17th of May he had the satisfaction of taking one with his own hands, though it 

 contained but a single addled egg and two young birds some two days oldf . 



" Mr. Wolley was very anxious to obtain and bring alive to England some of these birds. 

 There was no difficulty about snaring as many as one liked; but, though so tame and familiar 

 when at large, there was at first no getting them to feed in a cage. At last the effort was 

 successful ; and when he and I left Muoniovaara in 1855 we had five examples, healthy and 

 brisk, with us, all of which were finally safely deposited in the Zoological Society's large aviary, 

 where, I regret to say, they did not very long survive, their death being attributed (rightly or 

 not, I know not) to the painting of the aviary while the birds were yet in it. On the way home 

 we stopped for a week at Stockholm ; and there these birds created a great sensation. Each in a 

 cage to itself, they were placed at the open windows of our hotel, which looked on a market- 

 place ; and their loud and varied calls kept a crowd of small boys in constant excitement. The 

 boys would imitate the Jays' cries ; and the Jays kept replying to the boys. I could only wonder 

 at the forbearance of the neighbours and the police ; but I rather think some of them were a 

 good deal diverted by the whole proceeding. More sprightly and cunning birds than those Jays 

 cannot well be, whether caged or not. In their own woods one hears their deep, ringing kook, koofc, 



* " About the middle of April in this year Mr. Wolley left Muoniovaara for Norway." — A. N. 



t " The egg which I exhibited to the Zoological Society, 10th Dec. 1861 (P. Z. S. 1861, p. 396), and then 

 said that I believed it to be that of Nucifraga caryocatactes, is, I now hardly doubt, that of Perisoreus 

 infaustus." — A. N. 



