258 A SPRING AND SUMMER IN LAPLAND. 



The old birds appeared to guard it most jealously; 

 in fact, tlie Laps often kill tliem with, a stick when 

 they are robbing the nest, which they do upon 

 every occasion that presents itself. The snowy owl 

 will occasionally make its nest on the large turf 

 hillocks in some of the mosses. 



Considering the number of eggs that the 

 snowy owl lays, and the wild inaccessible nature of 

 the country in which its nest is usually built, I 

 cannot help wondering that this bird is not more 

 common on these fells ; but if we take into con- 

 sideration the immense fell tract stretching from 

 the Dovre fell, in Norway, right up to the North 

 Cape, and think of the tens of thousand acres 

 whereon human foot never treads, but over which 

 these birds have almost an undisputed range, our 

 wonder ceases. The old birds appear rarely to 

 leave the high fells, and if we want them we must 

 seek them in their wild mountain home. They 

 appear, however, to make periodical migrations 

 after the lemming, and therefore in some seasons 

 are common in districts where they have perhaps 

 not appeared for years. Still, I fancy the snowy 

 owl is more local than erratic. On some years 

 there appears to be a kind of general migration 

 of these birds down from the fells, and I remem- 

 ber in the winter of 1860, they were so numerous 

 in Wermland, that about fourteen specimens 



