14 BIRDS OF RUSSIAN LAPLAND 



Two Richardson's Skuas were about tlie ship, which afterwards nested 

 on the hill near. 



As the crew wanted some stores and we were anxious to get our 

 home letters, we returned to Vardo in the evening. 



On the 1 2 th we spent a very pleasant day exploring the island off 

 Vardo, on which the new lighthouse stands. It is a comparatively 

 small island, yet we noted seventeen species of birds, most of which 

 were breeding there. One piece of cliff, crowded with Kitti wakes' 

 (Rissa tridactyla) nests, formed a very pretty scene of bird life ; for a pair 

 of Ravens had built their nest under an overhanging shelf, in the 

 centre of the colony. Several Kittiwakes had nests within six feet of 

 the Ravens' abode, regardless of the fact that six or eight recently 

 picked skeletons of their relatives lay at the foot of the cliff. The 

 young Ravens could be seen plainly from below ; and the two old birds 

 flew round, attacking any Kittiwakes who approached too near the 

 nest, and were attacked in turn when they trespassed near other nests. 

 At last both birds settled on a point of rock at the top of the cliff, 

 and evidently gave us their views on our intrusion in the most 

 emphatic language they knew, the male projecting the feathers on the 

 throat until these looked like a large beard, while the female elevated 

 all the feathers on the top of her head, exactly as my tame Ravens, 

 Ralph and Susan, did, when arguing a point with me or between them- 

 selves.-^ 



June 13 th found us back at Little Heno. Other disturbers of 



1 These latter birds, with two others, were brought back from Norway in 1896, from 

 a nest on an island near Tromso. They were rather subdued by the voyage across the 

 North Sea, but on reaching terra firma their appetites and voices returned in redoubled 

 power, and at York their demands for food could be heard over the greater part of the 

 platform. Kalph soon developed a power of talking, but without discretion, as one of his 

 earliest escapades was to inform the Vicar's wife she was a rascal, and it was distinctly 

 unkind of him to ask the under-gardener, whose duty it was to clean out the birds' 

 enclosure, and who occasionally took more than was good for him, — " Charles, are you 

 drunk 1 " The bird would sit on my walking stick and say, " You are a naughty boy," 

 quite as clearly as a human being. His ideas on domestic discipline were drastic, and 

 when Susan offended he would hold her leg in one foot while he laid on punishment 

 with his beak. In the spring of 1900 he considered it was time they commenced "house- 



