26 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



The Wagtails seen were old and young birds of the universal 

 Motacilla alba, and once in the north the dark-headed Yellow 

 Wagtail, M. borealis of Sundeval, with almost black crown and no 

 eye-streak. 



The only notice I have of Fieldfares, besides a few near Voss, 

 was seeing a small flock flying over the birch wood on the hill-side 

 leading up to the foot of the Svartisen glacier in the Holands- 

 fjord. This I think must be the very same wood in which Messrs. 

 Pearson and Bidwell found the Icterine Warbler's nest in June, 

 1894. It is a charming wilderness of birch, covering rocky 

 ground, on the hill slope, and with a wealth of ferns, meadow- 

 sweet, rose-bay, golden-rod, and aconite, all the flowering plants 

 in full bloom, also the very finest and largest clusters of hair- 

 bells (Campanula rotundifolia) I have ever seen in any part of 

 Europe. Through a canopy of golden-green foliage, lighted by 

 a brilliant sunshine, you got upward glimpses of the great glacier, 

 sweeping downwards from an ice-field of over forty miles in extent. 

 The colour of the ice is a pale malachite-green and crossed with 

 gaping crevasses of cobalt. On the terminal moraines of the 

 glacier our party collected a large number of arctic plants. The 

 Trout were rising everywhere along the shore of the fjord, and 

 made one long for a trout-rod and handy boat. 



Nothing struck me more in Arctic Norway than the enormous 

 extent of the birch forests, filling the valleys and clothing the 

 sides of the mountains, till they give place to cold grey rock and 

 a sparse vegetation, with long streaks and patches of pallid snow, 

 carrying the eye forward and upward into the interminable ice- 

 plateaux and the grey-blue shadow-lands of the higher ranges. 

 There seems to be everywhere, both inland and on the bleak 

 tundra, on the shore of the Arctic Ocean, room for all the birds 

 in Europe to nest and enjoy the long summer day of those high 

 latitudes. Unfortunately the time allotted to us did not permit 

 much inland exploration. 



Some other birds in my list are a flight of about fifty Green- 

 shanks at Vadso coming down from the tundra to the shore, some 

 Golden Plover in the same place, and a good many Redshanks. 

 At Voss, and between Bergen and Voss (where I was staying 

 from Aug. loth to 17th), I noted several Herons, quite a large 

 flock of Woodlarks on some firs bv the side of the river, and 



