310 Notes on the Ornitlioluyy of Norway. 



Anxious to arrive in Norway at the first breaking up of winter, 

 we proposed to make the fieldfare our guide, and to take our de- 

 parture about the same time ; it was not, therefore, without feelings 

 of uneasiness that we watched its protracted stay upon our shores 

 long after the blackbird and the thrush had been busied in incuba- 

 tion. May had commenced, and yet the fieldfare tarried, and on 

 the 6th we sailed, and on our passage out were overtaken by seve- 

 ral small birds, which, after resting a few minutes on our rigging, 

 shot rapidly ahead of us. The solan goose was observed during the 

 whole time, and at the greatest distance from land. 



The weather on our arrival was bitter in the extreme, the day 

 following was sunny and delightful, and in a few minutes walk 

 from Drontheim we found ourselves on the borders of the forest, 

 surrounded by the delicious notes of several of our own sweet 

 songsters. 



With the exception of a few eagles, birds of prey were scarcely 

 ever seen ; once or twice only we observed a species of buzzard, a 

 harrier, and the hobby, while the kestrel and merlin were seen but a 

 few times. 



Both the British eagles were, however, not unfrequent upon the 

 coast, the white-tailed the more common of the two. Few of the 

 large rocky islands were without them, to particular spots of which 

 they seem to form an attachment, — daily taking their stand for hours 

 together upon some points of rock to prune their feathers, or to sit 

 in motionless inactivity. 



Mr John Hancock, who was one of our party, succeeded at mid- 

 night in watching a white-tailed eagle to its eyrie, which was upon 

 a ledge projecting from the side of a perpendicular precipice, and 

 inaccessible. With much difficulty Mr B. Johnson and myself suc- 

 ceeded in gaining a position above. In doing so we had climbed up 

 a deep ravine, and had passed so near the nest, displacing fragments 

 of the rock at every step, that we had given up all hopes of sur- 

 prising the old bird ; and having laid down our guns beside us when 

 the old bird left the nest, which had been hidden by a bush, and 

 was not many yards below us, we were then holding on by one 

 hand to tufts of grass to prevent our sliding down the oblique sur- 

 face of the rock, and it was to no purpose that we discharged our 

 guns with the other. We could now discern an egg and a newly 

 hatched young one. 



Whilst one day wandering in the forest, we were attracted by 

 the anxiety evinced during our loitering in the neighbourhood by a 

 pair of merlins ; and although at home we only know them as breed- 



