368 MR, J. H. gurney’s ORNITHOLOGICAL NOTES FROM NORWAY. 
published of Norwegian birds, and amongst the rest in ‘The 
Zoologist,’ by Messrs. Slater, Aplin, and Salter, but I am sur- 
prised to see that neither of these writers mention the Siberian 
Jay ( Garrulus inf audus), one of the most noticeable birds in 
Norway, and far less of a migrant than our handsome G. glandarius, 
not so handsome, perhaps, but more confiding. 
There were at least two or three pairs at Lesje Yoerk, and I heard 
on good authority of a flock of as many as eight. By all accounts 
they have a good deal of curiosity in their nature, which will 
perhaps lead them to come and watch a man fishing, or look at 
a hunter having his lunch ; and it is said that in the north a flock 
can be all shot down one after the other. The dorsal plumage is 
very thick, and must be a great protection against the cold in winter. 
In the Norwich Museum are two nests of G. infaustus, collected 
by Wolley, possibly the same described by Professor Newton in 
Dresser’s ‘ Birds of Europe.’ They differ considerably in their 
fabric : one is a flat nest of dense fibres, rootlets of Moss with Lichen 
( Usnea barbata ?)/ while the other contains a great number of 
feathers, among which are those of the Capercaillie, Willow Grouse, 
and Heron. 
In such a country I naturally expected to find Woodpeckers 
abundant, and from Professor Collett I learnt that the Great 
Black Woodpecker ( Picus martins) was to be met with at times 
in our valley — another bird which has probably never crossed the 
North Sea to England, in spite of many statements to the 
contrary. Mr. F. S. Mitchell found a nest at Stuen, a station 
in the next valley, hewn in a Pine to the depth of twenty-two 
inches (Zool. 1877, p. 201). Another nest in the Christiania 
Museum, shown by Professor Collett, was also in the bole of 
a Pine ; a tree no doubt very much to their liking, and of which 
certainly there are no lack. The immense stretches of fir woods 
in Norway are very impressive to one who sees them for the first 
time, and they must be a congenial home for the Woodpeckers, 
which have enormous Ant heaps filled with Ants ready at hand — 
some of them a yard high — and it is said Woodpeckers are more 
productive than they are in England. 
P. viridis not unfrequently lays as many as eight eggs in Norway, 
even hatching that number out (Collett). We did not come across 
P. tridactylus, but II. saw a black-and-white Woodpecker clinging 
