99 
of the Breeding of the Wax wing. 
In all, Mr. Wolley obtained twenty-nine eggs of the Waxwing 
in 1856. Later on in the autumn, an intelligent Lapp informed 
him that he remembered having seen a bird some twenty years 
before, and once or twice since had seen or heard another, but 
that was perhaps ten years previously. On the other hand, in 
1856 he had seen them some half-dozen times, and found a nest, 
from which, however, the young ones flew. This nest he sub¬ 
sequently brought very carefully, with the branch on which it was 
built, to Mr. Wolley, by whom it was sent the following year, by 
the hands of Dr. Edwin Nylander, to the museum of the Univer¬ 
sity of Helsingfors. The Lapp added that in the spring he had 
observed of the birds that “ they flew up in the air, and came 
and sat in the same spot whence they had flown—he thought 
in play ; but perhaps they were catching insects,” as Mr. Wolley 
himself suggested. 
In 1857, it seems that the Waxwing was still more rarely 
distributed in Lapland than it had been the preceding year. 
Mr. Wolley was of course exceedingly desirous of taking a nest 
with his own hands, and for this purpose devoted to the search 
much of his time before crossing the district hitherto unex¬ 
plored by him between the Muonio valley and the head-waters 
of the Tana. In this object he was only partially successful. 
He writes ," For myself, I could not, in spite of every exertion, 
get a living Waxwing within range of my pair of eyes. I took 
a nest which had been deserted a day or two before, and from 
which something had thrown the eggs, one after another, upon 
the ground as fast as they were laid; of course, broken to bits. 
It was close to the house at Sardio. In vain I wandered through 
the woods, and scarcely shut my eyes at night. Many people 
were on the look-out; but, after the nest of three eggs I told you 
of from Jerisjarvi, the only arrival has been a perfect nest of five 
eggs found by Piko Heiki, whom I desired to give up everything 
else, and work all the mountain-district for Waxwing.” The 
nest thus taken by Mr. Wolley, and which I intend to retain in 
my possession, as being the only one taken by him, bears date 
“ 16th June, 1857.” It was built in a Spruce, and agrees in 
most respects with those previously seen and described by him. 
The eight eggs just mentioned were the only ones obtained by 
ii 2 
