3024 Birds. 



bathing I disturbed two from the bank, and from their frequent return 

 to the same place, their peculiar cry, and strange antics to decoy me 

 away from the spot, I felt sure that they had nests or young in the 

 tufts of long grass which abounded; nor was I mistaken. After a di- 

 ligent search for some time, I found two young birds covered with 

 down, of a brownish hue above and white below : so motionless were 

 they, and so well in colour did they assimilate to the heather and long 

 grass around, that I might well have passed them over many times, 

 when searching in the very spot where they were. Presently I found 

 two more, in another part of the river-bank ; and soon after a low 

 chirping attracted me to another spot, where I found two others : in 

 all I found about ten, on various parts of the bank, but never more 

 than two in one spot, which was strange, as it is well known that the 

 summer snipe lays four eggs. As some of these little birds could 

 scarcely hobble over the heather (which they invariably did as fast as 

 they could, when I put them down and restored to them their liberty), 

 and as they appeared to be just hatched from the egg, I hoped to find 

 a nest, and long and diligently did I seach for one : but though I 

 looked in all the most likely spots, among the stumps of grass in the 

 boggy soil ; amidst the heath on the river-bank, and the pebbles on 

 the shore ; amongst the tangled grass and the bunches of reeds below 

 the little fir-trees and bushes; though I frequently got wet in my 

 earnest search, and once sank into the black boggy mud ; I could 

 find neither the eggs, nor the nest with the broken egg-shells, from 

 which the young I had just before found, must have come : and yet 

 as some of these young birds were but just hatched, and could 

 scarcely crawl over the rough grass, their cradle must have been very 

 near to me. I cannot close this account of the young of the summer 

 snipe, without remarking on the extreme accuracy of the figure of it, 

 as given by Mr. Yarrell in his most valuable work, in the vignette at 

 the end of the description of this bird. 



The Hooded Crow (Corvus comix). As the summer snipe, last de- 

 scribed, abounds more than any other bird on the banks of every 

 stream and lake ; so the hooded crow may be seen in vast numbers 

 throughout the valleys and marshes in Norway : indeed, this bird is 

 the great representative of the genus Corvus in that country, as the 

 rook is in this'; and frequently have I seen a hundred and more of 

 these birds wandering over the short grass of a newly-mown meadow, 

 and digging their beaks into the ground for worms and slugs. I never 

 saw a rook or a carrion crow in Norway, and only once did I see the 

 jackdaw, but the hooded or royston crow is numerous enough to sup- 



