Page:The Zoologist, 4th series, vol 6 (1902).djvu/317

Rh suited to the Wheatear, being all birch forest, and even on the open fjeld these birds were quite rare; only one was seen.

(Cyanecula suecica).—Met with constantly in the marshy willow scrub in the valley, and almost every marshy bottom on the high fjeld, if it contained willow scrub, held its pair or two of Bluethroats. Its song was constantly heard, and for variety and beauty beats any other song I have yet heard. Now and then we would hear some strange new song, and would spend some time carefully stalking the singer, only to find it was our little friend the Bluethroat again. When the young are hatched the cock, like our Nightingale, stops singing, and utters a harsh churring note.

Both parents feed the brood, and at this time are much bolder and less skulking than usual. The nests, we believe, are very hard to find, and certainly we have found them so in other parts of Norway; so we must consider ourselves very lucky in having found three. A fourth we spent several hours over, watching the birds going backwards and forwards with food; but owing to the dense scrub on the banks of a stream, into which they disappeared, we could never successfully watch them on. Two of our nests were found by sheer luck, the hens flying off at our feet when walking through swampy scrub. The first was a neat round nest,