20 



nests of the latter, which I saw the next day, they were barkless and bleached. The only lining 

 was a bundle or two of coarsish dry grass. As I returned I touched the eggs on a point of rock 

 above me, luckily without injuring them. I handed them down in a glove at the end of a pole 

 (which the Lapp improvised) after the fashion of a church collecting-bag ; and when they were 

 placed in a safe corner, my feet were put in the right places, and I descended in safety. I had 

 luckily brought a box with hay, and on the 12th May had the eggs safe at Muoniovaara. There 

 were young inside, perhaps an inch and a half long, with heads as big as horse-beans." Besides 

 the above, details are given of many other nests taken by Mr. Wolley and his collectors. One 

 nest, taken in a cliff near Pinkisjarvi on the 27th April, 1855, he describes as follows: — "The 

 nest, very large and with a considerable hollow, was made of fresh sticks, not very big ; and 

 inside were a few green willow twigs and several tufts of sedgy grass;" and one taken by 

 Ludwig, his man, in West Finmark, 28th April, 1857, is described as " built mostly of old bare 

 birch twigs ; and then upon these were some finer birch twigs with the bark on, but old and dried 

 up. These were mixed with others, rotten and crumbling, some Grouse-feathers, and bilberry- 

 leaves. The nest was about three ells from the bottom ; and the hollow was four inches deep, 

 and half an ell across." In almost all cases the nest was placed on a rock or in the cleft of a 

 cliff; but Mr. Wolley records two instances of this Falcon breeding in a tree, about seven 

 fathoms from the ground, the cause for the choice of so exceptional a situation for the nest 

 being probably the want of a suitable nesting-place in rocks near where it had taken up its 

 abode. The number of eggs deposited appears to be generally four, though in many cases three 

 only were found in the nest. 



I possess a series of eggs collected in Lapland, which tolerably closely resemble those of the 

 Iceland Falcon both in size and coloration, but are rather finer in grain; and, judging from those 

 in my collection, they do not vary so much as the eggs of this latter species. They are closely 

 spotted or freckled with foxy red or reddish orange on a dull white ground, the latter being 

 scarcely discernible between the markings. 



The specimens figured are an adult female on the left in the foreground, and a young male 

 to the right in the background, both from East Finmark, and in my collection. 



In the preparation of the above article I have examined the following specimens :— 



B Mus. H. E. Dresser. 



a, 3 , nearly adult. East Finmark, June 1870 (Nordvi). b, d juv. East Finmark, August 26tk, 1869. c, $ ad. 

 East Finmark, 1870 (Nordvi). d,% ad. With large incubation-patch, Quickjock, Lapland, 1866 

 (T. E. Buckley). 



E Mus. Smithson. 



a, 2 . Fort Anderson, Arctic America, May 29th, 1864- (MacFurlane) . b, 6 . Fort Yukon, Porcupine River 

 (Captain F. J. Page), c, 6 . Fort Yukon, Arctic America, June 1862 (/. Lockhart). d, $ . America. 



