Notes on the Ornithology of Norway. 309 



II. — Notes on the Ornithology of Norway. By W. C. Hewit- 

 son, Esq. 



Having long wished to explore the breeding places of those 

 birds (periodical visitants of our shores) which leave us during the 

 time of incubation, Norway was fixed upon as the country which we 

 supposed most likely to gratify our hopes ; and, could we have pla- 

 ced dependence on ornithological works, they would not have been 

 disappointed. It seems however to have been, (as I fear it is still,) 

 the custom with ornithologists to refer the breeding-places of those 

 birds about which they know nothing either to Norway or some other 

 northern country. Relying too much upon them, we had promised 

 ourselves a long list of acquisitions, comprising nearly all the rarer 

 British birds. On the other hand, all the books of travels in that 

 country which we consulted agree in describing the scarcity of birds 

 in the Norwegian forests. 



Never was a country in appearance more fitted as the resort of 

 every class of birds, — with its extensive fiords,* — its numerous lakes 

 and rivers, — its unbounded forests, — its mountains and marshes, — 

 its lofty precipices, — and its unnumbered islands. 



For weeks we explored those ceaseless forests, over paths at one 

 time the track of a mountain torrent, at another the margin of a 

 lake or river, penetrating wilds untrodden except by the bear 

 hunters, climbing in turn the tops of the snowy mountains, but with 

 so little success that we ceased to carry our guns, — almost the only 

 living creatures which we saw being the hosts of black ants with 

 which the woods swarm, and by the tracks of which (as clearly de- 

 fined as the footpath in our fields) they are everywhere intersected. 



The fieldfare was the only bird which we ever saw in abundance 

 in the forest ; a thrush, a chaffinch, or a yellow-hammer, would some- 

 times, though rarely, cross our way. 



Four- legged animals were alike rare ; no bear or wolf ever ap- 

 peared to peril our path, and the total number of quadrupeds seen 

 during our rambles consisted of three foxes, a hare, a few squirrels, 

 a rat, and a mouse. 



With little better success we visited upwards of a hundred is- 

 lands, and though they were each of them occupied by a few of the 

 black-backed, heron, or common gulls, we never saw these, or any 

 of the sea birds, (with the exception of the puffin, eider duck, and 

 common gull,) in the same abundance that they are seen at the 

 breeding places upon our own coasts. 



* Arms of the sea. 

 VOL. II. NO. 10. X 



