NOTES ON TWO MORE SALMON-RIVERS. 
137 
keenly discriminating ear and accurate knowledge of 
the different notes, calls, and songs of birds left but 
little room for omission or mistake.* Not a feathered 
atom whistled, squeaked, or sang during our stay but 
its presence was instantly detected and its nest, if 
required, found. Hence the following (omitting the 
commoner kinds) may be taken as a fairly full census 
of the spring avifauna of the Forde dale. 
Though of very circumscribed area, yet the valley 
of Forde, in Sondfjord (lat., 61-° N.), may be regarded 
as typical, in its bird-life, of dozens of similar dales in 
Western Norway. We paid constant attention to the 
birds during the intervals between salmon-fishing, and 
the following notes are the result. 
These intervals included the period between breakfast 
—usually about noon—and an early dinner about 6 p.m.; 
after which we steadily “ stuck in ” to the business of 
salmon-fishing till two or three on the following morning. 
The most conspicuous species was, perhaps, the 
pied flycatcher; nowhere have we seen these pretty 
little birds so numerous — ubiquitous alike in close 
proximity to houses and village and in remote forests 
bordering on lakes and rivers miles away from habi¬ 
tation. It did not, however, frequent the higher 
levels, even where forest-growth was abundant, and 
where the redstart was common enough. The favourite 
nesting-places of this flycatcher were natural holes— 
* But three short months afterwards, and before this note has 
gone to press, that keen eye and ear were closed for ever. Returning 
from Norway in June, we had shot grouse together in August, and 
on the 21st of that month I had gone out to Spain ; but was at 
once recalled by telegram, and on September 3rd my dear old 
companion died of typhoid, five days after I had reached home. 
