I20 BIRDS OF RUSSIAN LAPLAND 



most of the river still ran between the island and the town, and 

 vessels of 200 tons could anchor close to his warehouse; now all that 

 part is dry at low tide. Barents is also said by Rae to have called 

 here in 1594 on his voyage to Novaya Zemlya, although Gerret de 

 Vier only states that he anchored at Kildin island off the Kola fjord 

 for six days ; still, as a settlement was founded at Kola in 1 565 by the 

 Netherlanders, it is very probable that Barents visited it. Peter the 

 Great considered the place of sufficient importance to erect a battery 

 and large church, but the former was pulled down in 1780. Rae 

 tells us that " Kola was twice visited by English men-of-war ; once 

 in 1809, and again in 1854, when the gunboat Miranda bombarded 

 the town and almost destroyed it. In all, nearly a hundred houses, 

 the old battery (?), two churches, and the Government stores of corri 

 and salt, were destroyed. The inhabitants are said to have shot two 

 English sailors, sent on shore for water, and the commander of the 

 gunboat gave twenty-four hours' grace to the inhabitants to remove 

 what they could." The only relics we saw of the bombardment were 

 an old cannon damaged by a shot, and some cannon balls ; the whole 

 surrounded by a wooden fence. The size of the town must have 

 fluctuated greatly at various periods, for we read that in 1582 there 

 were 1900 inhabitants, whereas now there are scarcely 300, who live 

 in a long line of wooden houses facing the sea — a north aspect, good 

 for neither man nor beast. 



But I have wandered from the birds, our object in coming here. 

 In the fjord near Kola we saw two Ospreys, two Whooper Swans, a 

 Rough-legged Buzzard, and some Cormorants, Several Great Black- 

 backed Gulls and Herring-Gulls were flying round Abraham's Crag, 

 a lofty precipice near the sawmill, where several kinds of birds were 

 said to nest ; and Goldeneyes Clangula glaucion, Velvet Scoters, and 

 Common Gulls were numerous on the sea. On the mud flats of the 

 Tuloma we saw a flock of ten or twelve Bar-tailed Godwits feeding, 

 a sight which raised our hopes very high at the time ; though during 

 the ensuing weeks we often wondered where those birds had gone to 



