120 
WILD NORWAY. 
It was a somewhat grim sensation, sitting over 
that grisly carcase in the dim mysterious twilight of 
the northern night. The sense of solitude was rather 
heightened than otherwise by the occasional note of a 
cuckoo, and by the “ scree ” of an unknown bird, possibly 
a brambling, though the note sounded too harsh.. 
About eleven o’clock I heard a startling growl behind 
me, and high overhead an eagle-owl swept past with 
superb dash and speed. At short intervals he passed 
and repassed, always coming from behind, and evidently 
hunting a very wide circle of moorland. Never a pinion 
moved as he clove his way through the upper air, one 
hundred yards high, uttering now and again that 
strange growling bark, which I could still hear when he 
had passed far from sight. My previous acquaintance 
with this fine bird (in the south of Spain) had always- 
been in daylight, when, though imposing enough in 
sweep of wing, he is seen at disadvantage, and never 
impressed me with his magnificent power of flight as on 
this wild northern fjeld. A smaller owl—perhaps the 
hawk-owl, but possibly only the short-eared—was also- 
hunting low around the nearer scrub : mere “ pottering ” 
work as compared with the lofty aerial sweep of his 
larger relation; and woodcocks flighted to and fro- 
among the pines, dropping down towards a marshy flat 
below. 
The light breeze had died away to nothing, when,, 
only a few minutes before midnight, I heard from 
among the belt of birch-saplings just beyond the carcase- 
a different sound, that set my heart off at inexcusable 
speed, despite every effort to control it. The sound was. 
a double grunt or “ sniff,” low, but quite distinct. Was 
