308 A SPRING AND SUMMER IN LAPLAND. 



for in the end of March, 1863 (in which year I took 

 above thirty-five nests out of our woods), when the 

 weather was very stormy and rainy, I found more 

 than a dozen nests, in which the unfledged young 

 had perished through the inclemency of the 

 weather. 



The pine grosbeak (Gory thus enucleator, "tall- 

 bit," Sw.) — I was much pleased on arriving at 

 Quickiock to see small flocks of pine grosbeaks in 

 the fir forests, close to the village, which appeared 

 to have remained here throughout the winter, at 

 least I saw frozen specimens which had been killed 

 in February, but these might have migrated and 

 returned again, for I have always noticed that 

 when the grosbeak come into our Wermland 

 forests in the winter, they usually appear early in 

 November and leave us in February. By the first 

 week in May they had paired, and we took our 

 first nest on June 4, with three eggs, in a small 

 fir, about ten feet from the ground, on the side of 

 a small fell, in by no means a large wood ; and I 

 may here observe that all the nests Ave took were 

 built in small firs, never high from the ground, or 

 in deep woods, and generally in rather conspicuous 

 situations; the nest always placed close in to the 

 stem. All the trees in the Quickiock forests are 

 so small and stunted, and the branches so bare, 

 that scarcely any bird, except the very small ones, 



