150 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



Very many of those societies have, as some of their objects, 

 to protect birds and animals, and especially to do away with the 

 habit of robbing nests. I hope to be able to have some 

 strengthening influence. . . . Mr. E. Sigurdsson has lent 

 me some of your publications on bird life in Iceland, and we 

 hope to be able to translate and publish parts of them. 



Next to those widespread societies are the teachers in Elemen- 

 tary Schools, both in willingness to work on such lines, and in 

 their scope to influence the public. I am there rather fortunate 

 also. . . . From many of them have I got direct promises 

 to influence their pupils in this way. 



I am sure you will be glad that your staying here, and the 

 advices you have given us have, in a way, been understood and 

 acted upon ; you have started a movement here which, in due 

 time, will entirely change and civilise our opinions towards birds 

 and our wild nature in general. This will not be won all at once, 

 as there are very strong antagonistic forces, but it will be won 

 by and by. 



Hoping that you may spend a pleasant summer again observing 

 the birds, whose defender you have been, I remain, 



etc." 



I hope, then, that those who share my views, on these matters, 

 will think that my going to Iceland has been productive of more 

 good than ill. 



July 3rd. — After leaving the Eagles, I rode a short distance 

 with Sigurdsson to see the nest of a Great Northern Diver, but 

 the chief objects of interest for me, in the series of small meres 

 and islets which here make an outlying corner, as it were, of the 

 great lake of Thingvalla, were the Eed-necked Phalaropes that 

 everywhere abounded upon them, for it is these birds now that I 

 specially wish to study, though I fear I have left it too long. As 

 we passed the first shallow reedy pool, which was isolated and 

 quite small, I saw several of them rising from the water, and 

 making little darts at one another, in a more pronounced way, 

 I thought, than when I had last seen them acting so, or, at 

 any rate, as pronounced, each time, as in the best former 

 instances. I dismounted, and walked to a low rise of the 

 ground, near by, which made, in itself, a good post for observa- 



