14 
WILD NORWAY. 
III. The Avifauna of Norway. 
Norway is popularly believed to be tbe summer 
home of many of our British winter birds and wildfowl. 
An old gamekeeper recently asked me, with crescendo 
indignation, “ Isn’t it true, sir, that they furriners just 
live on woodcock eggs ? ” Old Anglo-Norsk fishermen, 
on the other hand, have exclaimed :—“ Birds ! There are 
no birds in Norway, except magpies and grey crows ! ” 
Truth lies in the middle. Scandinavian ornithology re¬ 
quires extremely close and 
careful attention — very 
different from that which 
the casual fisherman or 
tourist bestows upon it. 
The immense extent of 
mountain-land and snowy 
alpine region is adverse 
to the general distribu¬ 
tion or diffusion of bird- 
life, which is scattered 
sporadically over the huge 
OUR ONLY NEIGHBOURS. . . , 
area ; or perhaps it would 
be more accurate to say, is localized and circumscribed 
to certain suitable spots which occur only at wide 
intervals. These favoured spots, amidst infinite space,, 
like oases in a desert, one may or may not have the 
luck to “hit off.” Briefly summarized, the Norsk 
avifauna may thus be described :—On the high snow- 
fjeld there is no variety at all; on the lower fjeld, 
though one may search over hundreds of miles almost 
