326 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



IN QUEST OF BIBDS ON THE MUONIO RIVER. 

 By A. Sutton Davies. 



The River Muonio, as most ornithologists are aware, forms 

 the natural frontier between Swedish and Russian territory where 

 those two countries adjoin one another, or, more strictly speaking, 

 between Swedish Lapland and Russian Finland. Taking its 

 rise from Lake Kilpis-jarvi in Finland, close to the Norwegian 

 frontier, and not more than thirty miles from the Lyngen Fjord in 

 Norway, the river flows in a southerly direction to the Gulf of 

 Bothnia, more than three hundred miles away. The country 

 being low, with no mountains of any size, there are long stretches 

 of still, unbroken water on the river ; but on the other hand, 

 there are several places where the rapids extend almost without 

 a break for six miles. The banks are low, and densely fringed 

 with willow-scrub and stunted birch-trees ; while great stretches 

 of "tundra," the breeding-places of countless birds, stretch on 

 either side up to the rounded hills which form the river valley. 

 This district has been rendered famous in the annals of ornitho- 

 logy by the late John Wolley, who, making his headquarters some 

 forty years ago at Muonioniska, a little south of lat. 68° N., 

 worked the country round for several years. The upper parts of 

 the river, however, have been but little explored, Wolley himself 

 having only passed through them once on his way from Norway 

 to Muonioniska: and it was with the object of fishing and 

 observing birds on the upper Muonio that we left England on 

 the 18th June last. 



So many ornithologists have travelled up the Norwegian 

 coast that the features of its bird-life are now tolerably familiar. 

 As we went northwards Gulls, Oyster-catchers, Terns, Richard- 

 son's Skuas, and Guillemots (Uria troile and U. grylle) became 

 more and more frequent. At Tromso, where we had to spend 

 several hours on June &5th, we found young Fieldfares and 

 Bramblings just leaving the nest in the birch-woods. The night 

 of June 25th-26th was spent on the island of Sjaervo, lat. 70° 3' N., 

 where by the light of the midnight sun we visited a colony of 

 Herring Gulls situated upon the top of a hill above the sea. 

 Although there was an inaccessible cliff close by, with plenty of 

 nesting room, the Gulls apparently preferred the flat ground at 



