Page:The Zoologist, 4th series, vol 3 (1899).djvu/81

Rh mountains gave place to gentle slopes green with grass and feathery birch wood. We had seen nothing so verdant for hundreds of miles. There was moss-fjeld with melting snow patches aloft. A flock of Arctic Terns was fishing in the channel, and a Skua in mottled plumage passed us. In the course of the morning we landed at Tromsö, after just a week of travelling. Ten days were spent there, three of them being occupied by a trip to the Lyngen Fjord, where ice-clad mountains, separated by glaciers and snow-filled gorges, rise from the water's edge to a height of between five and six thousand feet. The small hours of an extremely wet morning were spent on shore at Lyngseidet; while, by taking advantage of the fact that the boat calls twice at Skjervö, we were able to spend rather more than twelve hours upon that island, which lies just north of lat. 70°. On July 21st we left Tromsö in the 'Röst.' Next day we got two or three hours ashore at Stokmarknaes while stopping to coal. The Raftsund, grandest of the Lofoten straits, was traversed, and Svolvaer reached on the evening of the 22nd. Three days were spent in making excursions in the neighbourhood of Svolvaer, and we finally left for Trondhjem and Bergen on the 26th. Much time was lost in steamboat travelling, or the following list might have been somewhat extended.

Cyanecula suecica.—We met with the Red-spotted Bluethroat frequently in the willow swamps. Apart from the slight difference in plumage, it appeared to be the counterpart of the whitespotted form which I had met with on the Rhine, though, as the males had ceased singing, I had no opportunity of comparing the songs of the two species. The females showed themselves more freely than those of C. wolfi, which, in my experience, are given to skulking. Skjervö appeared well suited to this species, as in moist hollows amongst willows and birches on the rocky slopes beyond the village we saw representatives of three pairs. On July 15th, in the Tromsdal, some distance below the Lapp encampment, a pair of Bluethroats scolded from willows by the stream. With them were the young ones, which had not long left the nest. They reminded one of young Stonechats or Robins, but were more richly coloured. On the 24th we saw a similar family amongst birch scrub a short distance inland from Svolvaer.