152 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



very wet part of the wood, some eight feet from the ground. The 

 bird sat until my fingers were within an inch of her, and I should 

 have touched her had not the alder-stem swayed so with my 

 weight, for the nest was just out of reach from the ground. The 

 nest was formed of dead grass and little else, with a thick lining 

 of white Willow Grouse feathers. The young were hatched, and 

 a day or two old. 



Emberlza citrinella. — Not common, but seen near Tromso 

 town. 



E. schoeniclus. — Not uncommon about the willow bogs, &c. 



Pica ?*ustica. — Often seen about the houses ; looking whiter on 

 the wing than our birds. I saw some large domed nests in birch 

 trees close to the houses, and an enormous nest on the top of one 

 of the tall pyramidal piles of fencing or fish-drying posts, so 

 commonly seen in North Norway. 



Corvus corax. — This bird is occasionally seen about Tromso. 

 On the 19th no fewer than nine rose together from a bit of 

 cultivated ground along the shore. We saw several on the 

 Floifjeld. I bought in Tromso a very richly-marked Raven's 

 egg. It is a much more handsome egg than any figured in the 

 works of Meyer, Hewitson, or Seebohm. It is of the type shown 

 in the lower figure in Hewitson's plate (1st edit.) and the right- 

 hand figure of Seebohm's, but the surface-markings are bolder and 

 much darker, of a black-brown indeed. 



C. comix. — Fairly plentiful. 



Cuculus canorus. — Fairly common, and in good song. 



Bateo lagopus. — When on the Floifjeld (about 2500 feet) 

 across the Sound on the mainland, we saw a pair of Rough-legged 

 Buzzards several times flying above and below us. Once I came 

 upon one of them sitting on a rock ; when it rose it flew straight 

 at me and passed overhead. These fine birds have a shrill, loud 

 cry — " me-kow." All the under parts appeared white at some 

 distance, except the dusky or dark brown tips of the wings, a 

 reddish spot in the middle of them, and a patch of the same 

 colour on the lower breast or belly. The upper parts were 

 rather light coloured. 



Falco cesalon. — In the midst of the Fieldfares' colony in the 

 Tromsdal we found a pair of Merlins breeding. They had a nest 

 (an old Crow's nest, I believe, made of rather big sticks) in a 

 birch some thirty feet from the ground. As I came down hill 



