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MANUAL OF THE BIRDS OF ICELAND

Edinburgh: Printed by T. and A. CoNSTABLE
FOR
DAVID DOUGLAS.

LONDON . . . SIMPKIN, MARSHALL, HAMILTON,
KENT AND CO., LTD.

CAMBRIDGE . . MACMILLAN AND BOWES.

GLASGOW - + JAMES MACLEHOSE AND SONS,

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TH.SU3 MANUAL

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Birds

BIRDS OF ICELAND

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HENRY H. SLATER, M.A., F.ZS.

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EDINBURGH
DAVID DOUGLAS, CASTLE STREET
1901

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PAGE
INTRODUCTION, . : ; : 5 ; : ; ‘ vil
CLosE SEASON ACT OF THE ALTHING, ; : XV
Hints on ICELANDIC PRONUNCIATION, ‘ : : XVi
BIBLIOGRAPHY, . ; ‘ : ; See ok ; xx
Brrps oF ICELAND, . : ; ; ; 1
INDEX, : F 146
rns ERA ETONS
A CoMPARISON OF THE HEADS oF BARROW’S GOLDEN EYE
AND Common GoLpxgN Eye, after a Drawing by
F. W. Frouawk, : : ; : Frontispiece
EIREK’s JOKULL, FROM THE ARNARVATNSHEIOI, from a
Photograph by H. N. DuGMore, : T'o face page 99
NEST OF THE GREAT NORTHERN Diver, from a Photo-
graph by H. N. DucGMorgE, : : To face page 133

Map oF ICELAND, . : : ‘ ; End of volume

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INTRODUCTION

I HAVE been studying the Birds of Iceland for some
fifteen years, ever since my first visit to that most
interesting country in 1885, and have often felt the
want, at first especially, of a handy manual on the
subject. But there is no such thing in the English
language.

As the available information is scattered, largely in
driblets, amongst Icelandic, Danish, German, Latin,
and English books and periodicals, it has occurred to
me that it may be a convenience to English-speaking
ornithologists to have this information revised and
condensed in a handy form.

And as, too, many of my fellow-countrymen visit
Iceland to fish, geologise, botanise, study their health,
or do nothing in particular—according to their various
ways of taking hfe—and a good many of them, from
my experience of them on board ship, seem inclined to
take more or less interest in the birds they meet with
there, it is possible that a handy manual on the subject
may, in their case also, supply what is at present a
want.

I have not been considering the ‘mere collector, and
have no wish to minister to his insatiable appetite for

Vil

vill BIRDS OF ICELAND

the acquisition of as many egg-shells of rare birds as
possible. If he makes his living by dealing in such
things, it is unfair to condemn his objects altogether ;
but the worst offenders in this direction, I am afraid,
are more or less well-to-do amateurs. In the case of
the rarer species, therefore, I have purposely been as
vague as possible in mentioning localities. The Great
Auk is gone for ever—I do not think that the mere
collector had very much to do with that—but there
are two or three other species, the extinction of which
as breeding birds in Iceland does not seem very far off.
Amongst these are the Grey Phalarope, the Black-
tailed Godwit, and the Little Auk; and the Iceland
Falcon also is rapidly decreasing in numbers. In these
and other cases, this is owing to the wholesale taking
of their eggs, which the Close Season law in Iceland
does not regulate in any way.

There is a great deal of literature bearing on the
subject. It begins with Snorro Sturleson, who, with his
nephew Olaf Thordsson, wrote the ‘Younger,’ or ‘ Prose
Edda, begun about 1150 and finished about 1250. It
is chiefly mythological, but contains, amongst other
things, a tolerably complete list of bird-names of the
period. Most of the names are those in use in Iceland
to-day, but there are a good many birds mentioned (eg.
the Kite, Cuckoo, Stork, Sparrow-hawk) which have
never been seen in the country, so that, though valu-
able etymologically, the Younger Edda does not throw
much light upon Icelandic ornithology as we under-
stand the term. About the middle of the eighteenth

INTRODUCTION ib:

century a number of zoological works appeared in rapid
succession—Johann Anderson’s Nachrichten (1747),
Horrebow’s Tilforladelige Efterretninger (1752), Briin-
nich’s Ornithologia Borealis (1764), “Olafsson and Pals-
son’s feise (1772), Olavius’ Oceconomisk Reyse (1780),
and Mohr’s Forség (1786). But ornithology as an
exact science began in Iceland with Friedrich Faber,
still deservedly venerated in the country as ‘Fugle
Faber. His Prodromus is a careful and, on the whole,
reliable compendium, containing a great deal of de-
tailed information on birds from his own personal
knowledge, and was published in 1822. It (and the
following) should be studied by every one who desires
to master the subject. Of the numerous works since
produced which bear upon it I wish to recommend
Preyer and Zirkel’s feise (1862), Shepherd’s North-
West Peninsula (1867), and, last but not least, Professor
_ Newton’s Appendix to Baring-Gould’s Jceland, ete.
(1863), which I, personally, have found extremely valu-
able and suggestive. Of all the papers in the various
periodicals, those specially useful will be found to be
indicated by an asterisk in the list given on pages x1x.-
xxi. I should like, however, to single out for special
mention those by Herra Benedikt Grondal, as having
been of great service tome. There are a good many
works on Iceland which treat more or less of ornitho-
logy (as of everything else one can think of) without
materially adding to our knowledge of it, though they
do provide us with a variety of fancy problems.

As to Guide-books, there is a very fair one by

x BIRDS OF ICELAND

Mr. W. G. Lock. It is undated, but was published, I
believe, early in the eighties. As far as topography
and outfit are concerned, it is very good, but I must
warn the intending visitor against placing too implicit
a reliance upon the amount of sport which it will
otherwise induce him to expect everywhere—and also
against considering it a competent ornithological guide.
Two birds are mentioned (with Latin names too !)—the
Great Snipe and Bean Goose—of which the former has
never even been suggested by any ornithologist as
occurring in Iceland, and the latter has never been
satisfactorily ascertained to do so. And Mr. Lock has
been so completely misled by the variations, seasonal
and sexual, in the plumage of the Rock Ptarmigan (the
only wild Gallinaceous bird in Iceland) as to assert,
quite erroneously, that the Willow Grouse and Common
Ptarmigan are to be found there, besides a variety of
hybrid forms. This sort of statement is apt to discount
the value of any book seriously—and it would have been
quite easy for the writer to find out what competent
ornithologists had written. Another and much slighter
guide-book has since appeared, in which all these mis-
statements are copied and stereotyped. The bird-lore
in Sir Richard Burton’s Ultima Thule is also untrust-
worthy. That writer goes astray on the subject of
the Rock Ptarmigan too (vol. i. p. 172), and probably
led the writers of the guide-books off the road. He
also suggests Bewick’s Swan as an Icelandic bird
(11. 313), of which no evidence whatever exists; and by
speaking of ‘ Sula Bassana’ in one line and ‘ Sula alba’

INTRODUCTION xi

in another, would convey to a reader unversed in
synonymy the idea that two Gannets are found in
Iceland.

Foreigners usually make fun of our linguistic abilities,
and not, | am afraid, without reason. Many of us seem
to consider ourselves entitled to be a law unto our-
selves in the matter of the pronunciation and spelling
of foreign names and words. All the same, it is just
as excruciating to hear an Englishman speaking of
‘Rikkavik’ or ‘Rykyvik,’ as it would be to hear him
singing out of tune. Besides, there is no reason why a
visitor to Iceland should not master the general rules
of pronunciation on the passage out, so that there is no
absolute necessity for him to set everybody’s teeth on
edge when he gets there. As to misspelling, nothing
can, I fear, excuse what was recently described as ‘our
lordly disregard for foreign ideas of orthography.’
Herra Grondal is abundantly justified in ridiculing the
spelling of Icelandic proper names in a recent paper
in the Jdis, in which there appear to be over thirty
errors of the sort. But I do wish that the Royal
Geographical Society, when issuing their recent map
to illustrate Dr. Thoroddsen’s paper (1899), had put in
the names in Icelandic, instead of Anglo-Dano-Icelandie.
As far as accuracy of surveying goes, this map is far in
front of any previous one of the district; and for the
eredit of British workmanship, I am only sorry that
the nomenclature is not equal to the rest.

Gunnlaugsson’s map is still the only one with any
title to completeness, though it has obvious defects,

xi BIRDS OF ICELAND

one of the worst being that some of the out-of-the-way
districts apppear to be charted down from memory, or
at second hand. If our Royal Geographical Society
will continue to publish more accurate surveys of such
districts they will be doing good service, and preparing
the way for a really good map in the future. Let me
beg them, however, to put Icelandic names in Icelandic.
Lock’s sketch-map is good, as far as it goes, and he is
scrupulously accurate in place-names.

I cannot myself expect that I have altogether escaped
errors; no one, without a very extended residence in
the country, could hope to verify all the statements
which a book of this kind is expected to contain; but
I can honestly say that I have spared no pains in
obtaining as correct information as was possible under
the circumstances—and have taken great trouble,
especially, over the orthography of the Icelandic
names—and can only hope that my modest venture
may be as useful to students of the Iceland bird-fauna
as I sincerely desire it to be. For the help of visitors
to the country who are interested in the subject with-
out being technically ornithological, I have given a
brief description of the plumage, except in the case of
common and universally known birds—and also in the
case of some of the Waders, which would require
several distinct phases of plumage, each characterised
by very minute differences, to be described under each
species. I have in such cases referred generally to
the breeding dress only. I have also given a rough
description, in most cases, of the nest and eggs. These,

INTRODUCTION Xili

I hope, will enable visitors to recognise most of the
species they may meet with; any which they fail to
come to a decision upon should be carefully preserved,
with exact details of place, date, and anything else
noteworthy, and be submitted to some competent
ornithologist on their return home.

I have to express my grateful acknowledgments to a
good many persons—to Professor Alfred Newton, to
Mr. Howard Saunders, to Mr. J. E. Harting, to Mr.
Benedikt Groéndal of Reykjavik, to Mr. F. H. Water-
house, our helpful librarian at the Zodlogical Society,
to Mr. J. G. Millais, to Mr. P. Nielsen of Eyrarbakki,
to my friend Mr. St. Stephensson of Akureyri, and to
others, including my companions in Iceland at various
times, from all of whom I have had assistance in
different ways which has been of the greatest value
to me.

Finally, I should hke it to be understood that all
dates subsequently given for the appearance in, or
departure from, Iceland—or the nesting—of any par-
ticular species, are merely approximate. A late cold
spring, or an early winter, will modify them consider-
ably.

The measurements of birds require a word of ex-
planation also. The ‘length’ of a bird is the measure-
ment (with a tape or otherwise) from the point of the
bill to the end of the longest feather in the tail taken
in a straight line, and in the flesh—not from a skin,
which is often untrustworthy. The wing measure is
similarly taken from the ‘shoulder’ (which, however,

XIV BIRDS OF ICELAND

corresponds anatomically to our wrist) to the end of
the longest primary, or wing-quill. This can, of course,
be taken equally well from a skin, as the wing does
not vary by manipulation.

‘Resident’ is a term applied to a species indicating
that some individuals (but not necessarily the same
ones) are to be found in the country all the year
round.

A ‘summer visitor’ is a bird which arrives in the
country by migration from abroad some time during
the spring, and stays. till the autumn. Some species
pass through the country only, mostly along the coasts,
and in spring, on their way to their breeding-grounds
farther north, and return in the same way during the
autumn, passing a few days only in the country on
each occasion. ‘These are frequently termed ‘birds of
passage,’ e.g. the Knot, Curlew Sandpiper, etc. Some
which breed infrequently in Iceland, as the Grey
Phalarope, are more birds of passage, in reality, than
summer visitors, as many more individuals merely pass
through on migration than remain to breed.

THORNHAUGH ReEcToRY,
W ANSFORD.

CLOSE SEASON FOR BIRDS IN ICELAND
(Law dated December 16, 1885.)

By this law Terns, Snow-Buntines, Meadow-Pipits,
Wacetails, Wheatears, Thrushes, Wrens, and Finches
are not to be killed at all. All other birds, excepting
Eagles, Falcons, Merlins, Ravens, Skuas, Large and
Small Gulls, Saw-billed Ducks, Divers, and cliff birds
(Guillemots and Razorbills), are protected from April 1
till July 20; Puffins from May 10 till June 20; Petrels
(including Fulmars) from March 1 till August 10.
Neither net nor gun are to be used in taking Puffins
or Petrels.

No restriction is therefore made in the matter of
taking the eggs of any bird, except that those of the
Eider Duck are protected by another enactment. Con-
sequently the eggs of all birds are systematically taken
all over the country—partly to eat, partly, in the case
of rarer birds, to sell to foreigners. If the Althing
does not intervene, and regulate in some measure the
taking of eggs—and before long—several species must
be exterminated, as at present they can hardly succeed
in rearing young in Iceland at all.

XV

A FEW SUGGESTIONS ON THE PRONUNCIATION
OF ICELANDIC NAMES.

VOWELS.

A. When short, as in English—e.g. ‘ Hafstla’ (Gannet).
‘A. Almost equal to ow in English—e.g. ‘ gragds’ (Grey
Goose) =‘ grow gowse.’

#. Like a long English i—gaes (Goose) =‘ geis.’

E. As the short English e—sefoénd (Grebe) =‘ sef-und.’

‘E. Like the long English ¢ in ‘there.’

I. As in English—with a trifle more of ¢ sound.

‘I. Like cee—dilaskarfur (Shag)=‘deela sk.’

O. As in English, ‘not.’

‘0. The long English 9, as in ‘ wrote.’

0. Like the French ev, the Danish ¢, or the Swedish é;
6rn (Eagle)=‘ eurne’ in French.

U. Like our wu in ‘use.’

'U. Like oo; Brimdufa (Harlequin Duck) =‘ brimdoofi.’

Y. Like a short 7, with which it is often interchangeable.
The last example would be pronounced exactly the
same whether spelt ‘ brym~’ or ‘ brim-.’

AU. Like the French ev. Strauménd (Harlequin) sounds

like the French ‘Streumund.’
EI\ Like ‘ay’—so that Reykjavik is pronounced
EYJ" «Raykyavik’; ‘heidi’=‘haythy.’

xvl

HINTS ON PRONUNCIATION xvil

CONSONANTS

are mostly pronounced as in English, and ours is the
only other European language which preserves the true
th sounds. The exceptions are :—

C is always hard, like £; never=s as in English.

PD, or 5 (called ed). Like the ¢h in ‘bathe,’ with a subdued
d-sound in it. To write airily in English ‘brodir’
for ‘brodir’ (brother) is therefore simply preposterous.

F. Usually as in English; but before /, n, 5, or ¢, it takes
the sound of 6, thus ‘hrafn’ (raven) is pronounced
‘hrabn’; a terminal / is also apt to melt into »v.

G. Like the English hard g (that before a, 0, or u). When
preceded by a vowel and followed by another soft
vowel or j, g is sounded like y. ‘Nefboginn’ (‘ bow-
shaped bill’), a name Professor Newton gives for the
Curlew, would be pronounced ‘ Nevboyinn.’

H is always aspirated.

J. Like the Continental j, or our ».

K. As in English before a consonant, the vowels a, 9, »,
or at the end of a word. Before e, i, y, ae, 6, ey, or
et, a slight j-sound is introduced, as in the English
‘cure.’

L. As in English; but when doubled=‘dtl.’ ‘Havella’
(Long-tailed Duck)=‘ Howeditla.’

M. As in English.

N. As in English, but often dropped. ‘ Vatnsénd’ (Mer-
ganser) =‘ Vatsund.’

P. As in English, except before ¢ when it becomes an /.
‘Alpt (swan)=‘alit.’ No word beginning with p is
of genuine Norse origin.

b

XVill BIRDS OF ICELAND

Q is used before v, and almost=4.

R. As in English, except when following a consonant at
the end of a word, when it has the sound of wr.
‘Hafskimr’ (Great Skua)=‘ Hafskimur, and may be
written so.

ale As in English.

P, p (called ‘Thorn’). An aspirated th, as D (5) is an
aspirated d. It is pronounced as we pronounce the
Greek @ and our th oa think’). Like D, p is never
doubled.

V. As in English, but is sometimes softened into yw,
e.g. ‘Havella’ (Longtail) =‘ Howedtla.’

X. As in English.

Z. Seldom used, and then standing for a combination of
other consonants (e.g. ‘ Kvazt’=‘ Kvadst’; ‘Beztr’=
‘Betstr’), and has the sound of s.

Dist h@ G haa Pe AY

(* Indicates that the work to which tt is prefixed is recommended
as likely to be useful.)

Anderson (Johann). Nachrichten von Island, Grinland,
und der Strasse Davis, ete. Frankfurt und Leipzig,
1747. 8vo.

Baring-Gould (S.). See Newton (Alfred).

Benguerel (G.). ‘ Voyage en Island,’ bulletins de la Socrété
des Sciences Naturelles de Neuchatel, v. p. 445. Neuchatel,
1861. 8vo.

Briinnich (M. Th.). Ornithologia borealis, etc. Hafnie,
1764. 8vo.

Burton (Sir R. F.). Ultima Thule. London, 1875. 2 vols.
8vo.

Charlton (Edward). ‘On the Great Auk,’ Z'ransactions of
the Tyneside Naturalists’ Field Club, iv., Part i1., p. 111.
Newcastle-upon-Tyne, 1859. 8vo.

Clark (J. W.). ‘Travels in Iceland,’ Vacation Tourists an
1860. London, 1861. 8vo.

*Clarke (W. E.) and Backhouse (J.). ‘An Autumn Ramble
in Eastern Iceland,’ ete., Zdis, 1885, pp. 364-80.

Collin (Jonas, the younger). Bidrag til Kundskaben om
Danmarks Fuglefauna. Kjobenhayn, 1888. — Svo.
Sub v. Otus brachyotus.

XX BIRDS OF ICELAND

*Faber (Friedrich). Prodromus der islandischen Ornatho-

logie. Kopenhagen, 1822. 8vo.

Supplement to above. sis, 1824, p. 792. Jena, 4to.

—— Uber das Leben der hochnordischen Vogel. Leipzig,
1826. 8vo.

—— ‘Beytrige zur arctischen Zoologie,’ sis, 1824, p. 447.

— ‘Mohr’s Beschreibung der isliindischen Vogel,’ Ornis,
i. li. ili. Jena, 8vo.

Fairmaire (E.). ‘Liste des especes d’oiseaux recueillies
par l’expédition du Prince Napoléon,’ etc., Edinburgh
New Philosophical Journal, vi. p. 191. Edinburgh,
1857. 8vo.

Fischer (J. C. H.). ‘Der Faréische Zaunkonig,’ Journal fiir
Ornithologie, ix. 14. _ Cassell, 1861. 8vo.

Gliemann (Ph.). Geographische Beschreibung von Island.
Altona, 1824. 8vo.

*Grieve (Symington). The Great Auk or Gairfowl. London,

1885, Ato.
s Recent Information about the Great Auk. Edinburgh,
1888. 8vo.

*Grondal (Benedikt). ‘ Verzeichniss der bisher in Island
beobachteten Vogel,’ Ornis, 1886, pp. 356-74. 8vo.

—— ‘Ornithologischer Bericht von Island (1886),’ Ornis,
1886, pp. 601-14.

*—_.. Tsliindische Vogelnamen,’ Ornis, 1887, pp. 587-614.

i ‘Islenzkt Fuglatal, Skjrsla un hid 'Islenzka ndttirn-
Sresisfélag, artS 1894-5. Reykjavik, 1895. Sm. 8vo.

*—_‘Ornithologischer Bericht von Island, 1887-8,’ Ornis,
1897, pp. 85-98.

Gunnlaugsson (Jén). ‘Ornithologische Beobachtungen
aus Reykjanes in Island,’ Ornis, 1895-96, pp. 343-44.

BIBLIOGRAPHY 0-4

Hallgrimsson (Jénas). ‘Yfirlit yfir fuglana a ‘Islandi,’
Fyolnir, dttunda dr (8th year). Copenhagen, 1845.
Svo.

Hancock (John). ‘Remarks on the Greenland and Iceland
Falcons,’ Annals of Natural History, 1. p. 241. London,
1838. 8vo.

— ‘ Note on the Greenland and Iceland Falcons,’ Annals
and Magazine of Natural History, 1854, p. 110. 8vo.

Hooker (Sir W. J.). Journal of a Tour in Iceland, ete.
Second Edition. London, 1813. 2 vols. 8vo.

Horrebow (Niels). Tilforladelige Efterretninger om Island,
etc. Kjébenhavn, 1752. 8vo.

*Kriiper (Dr. Th.). ‘Der Myvatn und Seine Umgebung,’
Naumannia, vii., Heft i., p. 33, etc.; continued in
Heft i1., p. 1, etc. Leipzig, 1857. 8vo.

*____ ‘Die Inseln des Myvatn,’ Nawmannia, vii., Heft i1.,
p. 33.

—— ‘Ornithologische Miscellen,’ Nawmannia, viu., Heft 11.,
p. 436.

Liitken ( ). ‘Jahresbericht iiber die ornith. Beo-

bachtungsstat. in Diinemark,’ Ornis, 1885, p. 97
(sub voce Oriolus).

Mohr (N.). Forsig til en Islandsk Naturhistorie, etc. Kjoben-
havn, 1786. 8vo.

*Newton (Alfred). ‘Abstract of Mr. John Wolley’s
researches in Iceland respecting the Garefowl,’ etc.,
Ibis, 1861, pp. 374-99.

* ___ ‘Tetter on Icelandic birds,’ Jbis, 1864, pp. 151-353.

*___ ‘Notes on the ornithology of Iceland,’ forming
Appendix A to Baring-Gould (Sabine), Iceland, its
Scenes and Sagas. London, 1863. Royal 8vo. (pp.
399-421).

xxl BIRDS OF ICELAND

*Nielsen (P.). ‘Ornithologische Beobachtungen zu
Eyrarbakki in Island,’ Ornis, 1886, pp. 429-31.
*____‘Ornith. Beobacht.,’ etc., Ornis, 1887, p. 157.

‘Olafsson (Eggert) and Palsson (Bj arni)—Danice ‘Povelsen.’
Reise igiennem Island, etc. Soroe, 1772. 2 vols. 4to.
Also in German, Leipzig, 1774-75. 4 to.

Olavius (Olaus). Oeconomisk Reyse, etc. Kjobenhavn, 1780.
5 vols. 4to.

Pearson (H. J. and ©. E.). ‘On birds observed in Iceland
in 1894,’ Ibis, 1895, pp. 237-49.

Pennant (Thomas). 47ctic Zoology, etc. London, 1784.
3 vols. 4to.

*Preyer (Wm.) and Zirkel (Fr.). ese nach Island vm
Sommer 1860. Leipzig, 1862. 8vo.

‘Uber Plautus impennis,’ Journal fiir Ornitho-
logie, 1862, x. pp. 110 and 339. Cassel, 8vo.

Proctor (William). ‘Notes on an Ornithological Tour in
Iceland,’ Naturalist, 11. p. 410. London, 1838.

— ‘Clangula Barrovii a Native of Iceland,’ Annals of
Natural History, iv. 140. 1840.

Reinhardt (Johannes). ‘Om den islandske Svane, Vatur-
hastorisk Tidsskrift, ui. p. 527. Kjobenhavn, 1839. 8vo.

—— ‘Om Gejerfuglens Forekomst paa Island,’ Natur-
hastorisk Tidsskrift, ii. p. 533, ete.

“Shepherd (C. W.). Zhe North-west Peninsula of Iceland,
etc. London, 1867. Small 8vo.

Slater (H. H.) and Carter (Thos.). ‘Notes from Northern
Iceland in the Summer of 1885,’ Ibis, 1886, pp. 45-52.

‘Field-notes from Northern Iceland, Zoologist,
1886, pp. 149-59.

—— ‘On the Goldeneyes and Ptarmigan of Iceland,’
Zoologist, 1887, pp. 422-24.

BIBLIOGRAPHY XXxlll

Steenstrup (Japetus). ‘Ht Bidrag til Geierfuglens Natur-
historie,’ etc., Videnskabelige Meddelelser for Aaret,
1855, etc. Kyobenhavn, 1856-57.

Teilmann (Charles). forsig til en Beskrivelse af Dan-
marks og Islands Fugle, ete. Ribe, 1823. 8vo.

Thienemann (F. A. L.). Naturhistorische Bemerkungen, ete.
Leipzig, 1824. 8vo.

(Trevelyan (W. C.)]. Historical and Descriptive Account of
Iceland, ete. Edinburgh, 1840. Fourth Edition.
Von Troil (Uno). ‘Notes on the Fauna of Iceland,’ in
Letters on Iceland, by Sir J. Banks, Dr. Solander, ete.
Pinkerton’s Voyages, 1. pp. 621-734. London, 1808.

Walter (I. C. C.). Nordisk Ornithologie, etc. Copenhagen,
1842. Folio.

Wolley (John). ‘On the Birds of the Feroe Islands,’ etc.,
contribution to Ornithology, i. Edinburgh, 1850.
Worm (Olaus). Musewm Wormianum, ete. Lugduni-

Batavorum, 1655. Folio.

id

44

oe

THE BIRDS OF ICELAND.

Turdus iliacus, Linn. ReEpwina.

Native name: ‘Skogarprostur’ (Wood-thrush).

A SUMMER visitant in considerable numbers, ap-
pearing as early as March, but usually somewhat later,
and remaining in the country till the beginning of
October. Odd individuals are to be seen as late as
November. It frequents birch woods, or birch scrub
faute de mieux. Most of the Iceland birch woods are
now reduced to the condition of scrub, partly by
wasteful felling, partly by carelessly allowing sheep
to injure the young trees. In the autumn (August)
Redwings visit the gardens around farm-houses far
from any birch woods. I saw nests with five and
four fresh eggs, and also young birds already out of the
nest, on June 27, 1885, in the north; also, on August
17, 1894, young birds barely fledged. Even when
nothing happens to the first laying (we. in the shape
of a raven) I fancy that a second brood is sometimes
produced. The nest is usually placed on the ground
at the foot of a birch tree or bush—sometimes, where
two or three stems rise from a ‘stool, in the middle
of them a few inches above the ground—sometimes
A

2 BIRDS OF ICELAND

in a birch fork quite a yard from the ground. The
nest is made of fine twigs, usually of the birch, mixed
with grass and moss, then lined with mud or earth,
then again with fine grass, like the Blackbird’s, of
which the eggs also are a small copy, but usually a
trifle greener in ground-colour. Sometimes three eggs
only form a sitting, but four or five is the usual
number.

As this bird is so well known, and is, moreover, the
only thrush likely to be met with in Iceland, I have
not thought it worth while to give a description of the
plumage; but I may mention that the English name
refers to the bright chestnut patch on either side
of the breast, and partly under the wing, and that
any thrush found without these should be carefully
preserved.

The low chuckle of the Redwing is a familiar
autumn and winter experience in England; the true
song we never hear in this country. It may have
been, as Howard Saunders remarks in his Manual,
‘unduly eulogised,’ but it has been unduly depreciated
too; and I am quite unable to follow Professor Newton
when he alludes to it (Baring Gould, p. 404) as a
‘monotonous twitter, though I admit a certain same-
ness. But the tone is as melodious as that of the
Song Thrush, if it is as wanting in variety as that
of the Missel Thrush, and to hear it on a fine sunny
morning in Iceland is delightful; its wildness har-
monises so exactly with the rocky birch-strewn hill-
sides, and yet with the Spring brightness, too, that it

BIRDS OF ICELAND 3

conveys to the hearer a sense of agreeable proportion.
There is also a harsh note, uttered when any one
approaches the nest or young, and usually from the
top of a birch bush.

Turdus pilaris, Linn. FIreLpFARe.

Native name: none, but Herra Grondal seems to have
christened it ‘Graprostur,’ an Icelandic version of
the Norse ‘ Graatrost ’ (Grey-thrush).

A rare strageler. Grdndal (Skyrsla, p. 36) gives two
instances of its occurrence: at Reykjavik, on Decem-
ber 6, 1885, and in December 1894. I have heard of
no others.

Turdus merula, Linn. BLACKBIRD.

No native name: Herra Grondal’s ‘Svartprostur’ is
only a translation of the Danish ‘Sort drossel.’

There are one or two occurrences on record, several
of which seem dubious. Grondal (in Verzeichniss,
p- 357) mentions, rather doubtfully, an occurrence
‘in the east, in 1877, and Nielsen (Orns, 1887, p. 157)
one at Eyrarbakka on December 22,1877. There are
two specimens in the museum at Reykjavik, and we
may suppose it to be a rare straggler to Iceland.
I ought to take this opportunity to remark that all
the specimens in the above museum are not quite in
the position of Ceesar’s wife—beyond suspicion. For
example, there are two Common Linnets, Linota Canna-

4 BIRDS OF ICELAND

bina (Linn.), in that institution, one labelled correctly,
the other named ‘Audnutitlingur’ (Mealy Redpol)).
The occurrence of the Common Linnet in Iceland has
never even been suggested by any one.

Saxicola cenanthe (Linn.). WHEATHAR.

Native names: ‘Steindepill,—also ‘Steinklappa, and
‘Gradilodur, but I never heard either of the latter
used, and Gréndal mentions neither.

A summer visitor, plentiful in most parts of the
island, arriving about the middle of May, and usually
leaving in the beginning of August, though a few
may be met with as late as the middle of the next
month. The nest, made of fine grass with a few
ptarmigan feathers, is placed in much the same situa-
tions as in England—in crevices of rocks, heaps of
stones, etc.,—and five eggs seem more usual in Iceland
than six; sometimes there are four only. Their colour
is of a clear pale blue. The bird may easily be
recognised by the conspicuous white patch over the
tail, and by its note, a sort of ‘tick-tick, much lke
what might be produced by knocking two pebbles
together, from which the bird gains its vernacular
name in most European countries. This is usually
uttered while the bird is perched upon, or is just
leaving, a stone top. In summer dress the male is of
a clear grey with black points, the female drab.

In the Younger Edda of Snorro Sturleson, date about
1233, the name is ‘ Steindelfr.’

BIRDS OF ICELAND

je |

[Ruticilla titys (Scopoli). Brack Repsrarvr.
Native name: none.

Herr Preyer (see his feise) believed that he saw a
pair of Black Redstarts, on June 17, 1860, on the
island of Videy, close to Reykjavik, which appeared
to be breeding in the chapel-wall. No one else has
had a similar experience. Now most migrants travel
in flocks or streams, the males, as is noticeably the
case with the Common Redstart (Rf. Phenicurus), a
few days in advance of the females. We are to
suppose, therefore, that a single male found its way
to the neighbourhood of Reykjavik in that year only’
followed, a few days later, by a single female, and that
they paired in the usual manner and proceeded to
prepare for the cares of a family. I would not assert
that such a thing is impossible; but, when it is looked
at in detail, it is, to say the least, ‘Jules-Vernesque.’
And Videy is not even a ‘coral island’ !]

Troglodytes borealis, Fischer.
NORTHERN WREN.

Native names: ‘Musarbrodir. Professor Newton also
adds ‘Musarrindill,’ but I have never heard this
used, though ‘Rindill’ is the ancient Eddaic
name.

This species is confined to Iceland and the Faeroes,
the Icelandic individuals being larger than the
Faeroese, as the wren of St. Kilda marks a faint

6 BIRDS OF ICELAND

approach to the Faeroe bird. The Northern Wren in
Iceland has always been a puzzle tome. Every one
knows about it, and a good many Icelanders believe
they have seen it with more or less frequency—and
the knowledge which Icelanders have of their country’s
birds in general puts to shame the average attainments
in this line of Enelish country-folk, gentle as well as
simple. But on my occasional visits during the last
fifteen years, I have never been able to catch a glimpse
of this bird, nor of even an old nest. And though I
offered ten kroner for the bird, or the nest with eggs,
for years, it was all in vain. One Icelander informed
me that it nested in birch trees at some height from
the ground—but he was no doubt confusing it with
the Mealy Redpoll. Another sent me with great con-
fidence a nest and eggs, which proved on arrival to be
those of a Meadow Pipit.

The last historical occurrence I could find was that of
William Proctor, once curator of the Durham University
Museum, who taught me to stuff birds in my youth.
In his quaint manuscript Journal, which Professor
Newton kindly lent me recently, the following entry
occurs: ‘Tusday lst August (1837) I started for
Granstaer (Grenjadarstadir) as it is called (from
Reykjah6, apparently) and shot some Ptarmigan and
Little Wren and two Merlin Hawks on my way.’ He
observes a little further on: ‘Kittiwren leneth 4? inch
breadth 74 inch.’

I was unwillingly coming to the conclusion that
the Iceland wren must. be, at all events, verging on

BIRDS OF ICELAND 7

extinction, especially since Preyer (Reise) described it
as being ‘nicht haufig’ in 1860. On my arrival at
Reykjavik, however, in June 1900, Herra Gréndal
assured me that he had had the bird sent to him in
the flesh within the last few years; and Governor
Stephensson, the brother of my Iceland ‘ euide, philo-
sopher, and friend’—and Madame Stephensson also—
informed me that they had certainly seen it not many
years since.

By good fortune, we met with it ourselves, a week
or two later. Mr. Dugmore and I were searching a
scrubby birch wood, many miles from Reykjavik,
whereof the trees, which were few, and the bushes,
which were many, grew on the outskirts of an ancient
and ragged lava-flow of great extent. We were at the
moment hoping to find a belated nest of the Redwing
with eges, which were a desideratum in Dugmore’s
cabinet, when, all at once, I heard a wren sing, and the
effect was almost as startling for the moment as if a
native had attempted to ‘snipe’ me from behind a
neighbouring boulder. I stopped dead—but the rest
of us did not, and the mischief was done. Though I
waited some time, the bird was obviously startled, and
had flown elsewhere. But I was confident that my
ears had not played me false, and till late in that
afternoon we walked that rugged tract; I with my
ears pricked up, so to speak, all the time. Moreover,
I looked at every rock-face and mossy cranny in the
many little dingles there, in the hope of seeing a wren’s
nest. And I found one—an old one, but the real

8 BIRDS OF ICELAND

thing—in a rock-face partly clothed with trailing
vaccinium growing from ledges. Later on the same
day, I found another, quite a new one, in a similar
place, made of moss, and exactly like our own wren’s
nest, though with a somewhat larger aperture—but,
alas, no eggs !

Being very hot, and somewhat tired after five hours
of very rough walking, we sat down on a moss cushion
in a shady place some thirty yards from the nest. And
I was almost on the verge of forty winks, when—the
wren’s song again. Somewhat louder, even, than that
of our Kitty, and equally jubilant. A careful approach
only gave me a view of an anxious Redwing, cluckine
its warning from the top of a birch bush. ‘What a
wary little skulker it must be!’ I said to myself as I
subsided amongst the bushes. I daresay half an hour
passed, and again a burst of song from a new direction.
I crept towards it, and this time saw the bird sitting
on the top of a pinnacle of rock, standing above a
small barren plateau of ragged lava blocks between
which were patches of grey moss and lichen. I could
get no nearer than forty yards without showing myself,
which I dared not do; so tried a dust-shot cartridge
in my choked barrel, and saw the bird fall. We ran
to the spot but only found cracks between the lava
blocks, and a feather or two. So we started to ‘ shift’
the stones, and had not moved many before out from
under our feet fluttered the ‘ Mouse’s brother, and, like
a bolted rabbit, dived into another crack a couple of
yards off. We proceeded to the spot, and started

BIRDS OF ICELAND 9

shifting again, but this time I stood with my gun
ready. Shortly, out came the bird again, and made,
very shakily, for a rock some twelve yards off. I gave
it all the law I dared, and fired just as it reached the
rock, and saw it stagger against the side of a hole and
fallin. Unfortunately the hole opened directly into a
long narrow sloping crevasse (if I may use the word of
lava rock) which appeared to go straight down to New
Zealand, or somewhere even warmer.

We walked a good deal more, and each heard the
wren again, but got no sight of it. So we returned to
the manse where we were staying—lI, at least, with
feelings of keen disappointment: I detest above all
things failing to gather any creature whose life I have
taken. My friends kindly insisted upon our intended
departure being put off for another day, so next
morning found us foraging the lava and birch tract
again. We walked much of yesterday’s ground ‘ with-
out a whimper, and then proceeded in a new direction.
I was rather ahead, and was looking for the nest of a
pair of Phalaropes beside a little tarn, as Dugmore had
never taken their eggs, when, fifty yards to my front,
amongst the lava and birch scrub, rang out the well-
known song. I went quietly back to Dugmore, and
together we advanced cautiously, taking opposite sides
of a lava ridge from which I judged the sound had
come. I heard Dugmore shoot, and had the pleasure
—at last—of handling an Iceland specimen of the
Northern Wren.

All this excitement and fuss about a little bird will

10 BIRDS OF ICELAND

seem tolerably ridiculous to the jaded modern sportsman
who cannot interest himself in anything less than a
three or four hundred-head shoot, but I have never been
able (and my experience in these directions has been a
fairly varied one) to feel the same keenness of interest
about the fate of a stag, or anything else in the game
way, as I did about that little insignificant-looking
bird which I have found elusive in so many ways.

I collected further information about it from the
inhabitants of those parts. They pay little or no
attention (though extremely observant in other ways)
to the notes of birds, so were unable to tell me any-
thing of its proceedings during the summer, when,
moreover, they are busy about other things, and
anxious to make hay during the comparatively brief
time during which the sun shines effectively. The
bird is, besides, secluded at that time in the recesses
of wild lava-beds and birch scrub—is a most inveterate
skulker—and would never come under the attention
of any one who did not hear and recognise its note.

In winter, however, they tell me, they see a good
deal more of it, as it drops its timidity under the
pressure of hunger, and draws round the farms when
the country is covered with snow, to feed on such
scraps and insects as it can find about, and actually
in, the farm buildings. And there can be no reason-
able doubt that the great increase of domestic cats in
Iceland of recent years is leading, as in the Faeroes,
very rapidly to its extermination. It is undoubtedly
very scarce and local in Iceland now, and will to all

BIRDS OF ICELAND 11

appearance suffer the extinction which, until 1900, I
was inclined to believe had already overtaken it.

My bird is a male, and, judging from the measure-
ments given by Dr. Sharpe in the British Museum
Catalogue of Birds (vol. vi. p. 272), Icelandic examples
are larger than Faeroese, viz. :—

Total
| length.

Culmen. Wing. Tail. |Parsus:

ie

a. Iceland (Proctor), i,

h. Iceland, H. H.S., 3, |
13, vi. 1900, in AES 5 O00), 2520. elo | Ors ae
the flesh, ; a | |

c. Thorshavn, Faeroes, |
Sexe LS O0l) in’. ||: 42 0:b0" 75: |. 14 08
British Museum, | |

d. English Wren, 6, 4:0) 0°55 | 1°9 ig

o~

Or
©
~I
a |

The difference in length of bill, in favour of 7.
borealis, usually relied on as a distinctive feature, is,
as shown by Dr. Sharpe and confirmed by my speci-
men, non-existent.

The plumage, as I remarked to my companion the
moment we picked the bird up, suggests much more
that of 7. fumigatus (Temm.) of Japan, than our com-
paratively un-barred English wren. I may add that
the sternum of the Iceland male is a good deal larger
and stouter than that of 7. Huwropewus, and, measured
underneath from the rostrum to the posterior meta-
sternal border, is 1-in. longer. The coracoids are some-
what longer and stouter also, but the scapulee of the
two species show hardly any difference.

12 BIRDS OF ICELAND

Motacilla alba, Linn. Waite WaAGTAIL.

Native names: ‘Martalla, ‘Mariu-erla,’ ‘ Mariur-tit-
lingur,’ sometimes, erroneously, ‘gra-titlingur, a
name which belongs to the Meadow Pipit. The
prefix to the first three names appears to be a
Christian apology to the Virgin Mary. I gather
from Gréndal that there is reason to suppose that
in pre-Christian days this bird was called ‘ Friggjar
ellda’ (? erla)=the ‘erle’ of Frigga.

A common summer visitor, arriving in April and
leaving in September; flocking, preparatory to~ its
departure, in August. I have found fresh eggs on
June 13, young birds out of the nest on June 11; but
all dates of this kind are largely approximate in
Iceland, and vary considerably according to the alti-
tude of the place in question, and the earliness, or
otherwise, of the spring. We noticed White Wagtails
near Myvatn, in 1884, perching on willow bushes
near their nest like Whinchats in England. This
bird is not allowed to be killed at any time of year
by the Close Season Act (see p. xv.). The nest is of
grass and fine roots, lined usually with pony’s hair,
seldom with feathers, and is placed in a hole in a
bank, or turf-wall, or in a rock crevice. The eggs,
four to five in number, are white, thickly and finely
spotted with grey, and are not distinguishable from
those of our Pied Wagtail (JZ. lugubris, Temm.), of
which this species is the continental representative.
The White Wagtail usually nests near human habita-

BIRDS OF ICELAND 13

tions, but occasionally on lake islets, or amongst wild
lava tracts at a considerable distance from any house.

The bird is so like the Pied Wagtail in plumage
that it does not seem necessary to give a detailed
description, more especially as there is no other bird
in Iceland with which it can well be confounded; but
I may mention that the male always has a grey, not
a black back, as in the Pied Wagtail, and the grey
tints are somewhat lighter and clearer. Length 7}
inches, wing 3} inches.

Anthus pratensis (Linn.). Merapow Prrir.

Native names: ‘ Gra-titlingur, ‘pufu-titlngur. (‘ Tit-
lingur’ is a name applied to any small twittering
bird ; ‘gra,’ of course, means ‘grey’; ‘pufa’ is a
tussock.)

An abundant summer visitor, common everywhere
from May till September. I have found nests with
fresh eggs from June 25 till July 15. In Iceland,
as an apparent set-off to the dangers of the spring
and autumn flight across the turbulent North Atlantic,
the Meadow Pipit enjoys an entire immunity from the
attentions of the Cuckoo, which is such a pest to it
in Britain. As it seems to form the favourite prey of
the Merlin, however, it is ‘not all beer and skittles’
in Iceland.

The nest is placed on a bank-side amongst some
trailing shrub, or under a grassy tussock, and is made
of fine dead grass with a horsehair lining, and some-

14 BIRDS OF ICELAND

times a few ptarmigan feathers, which no small bird
in Iceland seems able to resist. The eggs (four to five)
are greyish white or light brown in ground colour,
more or less spotted and blotched with various shades
of brown, often with a fine black irregular line, or two,
as if scribbled with a pen, near the larger end. The
bird is well known, but it may be well to describe
it as slender-billed; light buff below, brown above ;
spotted boldly on the chest, broadly on the back with
very dark brown. It has a very long hind-claw
(longer than the toe it concludes), and is 54 inches
long, wing 3 inches. The outer tail-feather on either
side is half white, which shows very conspicuously
when the bird is on the wing.

[Oriolus galbula, Linn. GoLDEN ORIOLE.
Native name: none.

The only recorded occurrence of this bird in Iceland
is to be found in Herr Liitken’s Jahresbericht iiber
die ornith. Beobachtungsstat. in Danemark (Ornis, 1895,
p. 97), where it is stated that an adult male was
met with on the ‘north coast of Iceland’ in ‘mid-
December, 1843.’ Both the time of year and the
place suggest a legitimate surprise. |

Hirundo rustica, Linn. SwaALuow.
Native name: ‘ Landsvala.’

A summer visitor of extremely rare and irregular
occurrence, J have never seen one in Iceland (nor

BIRDS OF ICELAND 15

have most Icelanders), and there is no recorded
instance of their breeding. In recent times, Herra
Grondal (Verzeichn., p. 356) mentions how a pair
visited Reykjavik in 1875, and commenced to build
a nest, which came to nothing; also an odd bird on
May 12, 1881, also near Reykjavik, which was caught.
He also mentions (Ornith. Bericht, 1887-88, in Ornis,
1897, p. 89) that he saw one on June 15, 1887, near
Reykjavik, and one the next day. I have heard of no

occurrences except in the south.

Chelidon urbica (Linn.). House Martin.

Native name: ‘ Beejarsvala.’

The same remarks apply to this species as to the
preceding, except that its occurrences are even fewer.
Some birds appear to be far better known in Icelandic
literature than the frequency of their appearances in
the country would seem to warrant, and have special
vernacular names which seem to be universally known.
It seems very likely that this may be due to their
having a well-known place in the poetical literature of
the country, which is very extensive, and wherein I
must confess my education to have been grievously
neglected. This species and the last are examples of
birds that every one knows about, though few have
seen; an even stronger one is the Cuckoo, which has
never been known to occur in Iceland, and yet few
Icelanders will be ignorant (they almost universally
have a literary turn) of the Icelandic name of the

16 BIRDS OF ICELAND

Cuckoo, ‘ Gaukr’—which is Eddaic, and yet, though the
bird is non-existent in Iceland, well known to-day.

Linota linaria (Linn.). Meaty REDPOLL.

Native name: ‘ AuSnutitlngur’ (? Desert Twitterer).

I cannot imagine why this species is so often
described as rare in Iceland. It is a common resident
in the north (the numbers probably diminished during
the winter by partial migration), though less common
southwards. Wherever there are birch woods in the
north, there you may find the Mealy Redpoll in more
or less abundance. I have found it breeding as far
south as the Myra Syslu, and Herra Nielsen has had
the same experience near Eyrarbakka, in the extreme
south-west (see Ornis, 1887, p. 157; Skyrsla, 1894-95,
p. 37, etc.) I have seen nests with eggs in Fnjoska-
dalur, from June 27th. The nest is placed, sometimes,
in a fork of a birch tree, five to six feet above the
ground; sometimes actually on the ground, like the
nest of the Twite [Z. flavirostris (Linn.)]. Itis made of
fine birch twigs mixed with sheep’s wool, and lined
first with grass and wool, and finally with a profusion
of white ptarmigan’s feathers—a very neat and beautiful
nest. Six eggs are the general number, sometimes
there are only five. They are white, spotted, chiefly at
the larger end, and often in the form of a zone, with
light grey-brown and umber.

The bird is light buffish-white below, with a sooty
chin ; brown above, mingled with white streaks (whence

BIRDS OF ICELAND 7

‘mealy’); tail forked at the end, and the feathers
mealy-edged ; a rose-coloured cap on the crown (except
in very young birds), and in adult males, a lovely rosy
patch on either side of the breast, which, in very fine
examples, meet and form one; a trace of rosy also on
the brown-streaked rump. Length 5 inches, wing
22 to 3 inches. :

Linota hornemanni, Hollboll.
GREENLAND REDPOLL.

Native name: none.

Almost all British ornithological writers, except
Professor Newton in Baring-Gould, have gone com-
pletely astray about this bird, and have put it down as
the ordinary form of Redpoll in Iceland—e.y., Dresser
(B. of Hurope, iv. 42), Sharpe (B. ML. Cat. Birds, xii. 257),
Seebohm (BL. £.), Saunders (Man. of B. Birds, p. 181).

I would call attention—yet once more—to my
remarks on the subject in the /bis (1886, pp. 46-47).
L. linaria, Linn., is the common resident species of
Iceland, and the Greenland Redpoll is a rare occasional
visitor, probably in the winter only. Mr. Hancock’s
specimen, in fact, is the only genuine specimen of the
latter that has come under my notice; and I have no
information as to when, where, and by whom it was
obtained. I have never succeeded in getting hold of
another.

L. hornemann is a large Arctic form of L. exilipes
of Coues. Both these have the white rump, in adult

B

1 BIRDS OF ICELAND

(0)

birds, pure and unspotted. In ZL. linaria, L. hollboella
(a large Asiatic form of the former), and L. rufescens
(our English Lesser Redpoll), the white rump is
streaked longitudinally with brown. The total length
of LZ. hornemanni is 54 inches; L. linaria seldom
reaches 5 inches. The wing, measured when closed,
from the ‘shoulder’ to the tip in a straight line, is,
in L. hornemanni, from 3} to nearly 34 inches; in
L. linaria, from 22 to barely 3 inches. The male
Greenland Redpoll wears very little indeed of the
rosy colour on the breast, none on the rump, usually
only on the crown. Shortly, the Greenland Redpoll
is a large form of Redpoll, almost as large as a Linnet
(L. cannabina), with unspotted rump, and, in the male,
little or no rose colour, except on the crown of the head.

There are two examples of LZ. cannabina (Linn.), the
Common Linnet, in the museum at Reykjavik. One is
labelled ‘ AuSnutitlingur’ by mistake, and one bears
its proper name. There is no reason to suppose that
this bird has ever occurred in Iceland in the wild state.

Plectrophenax nivalis (Linn. ).
SNOW-BUNTING.

Native names: ‘Snjotitlingur, ‘Solskrikja’ (the first,
meaning the bird which twitters in the snow;
the second, that which screams in the sunshine).
Professor Newton adds ‘titlings blike’ for the
male; but I have never heard it, and Grondal
omits it.

BIRDS OF ICELAND 19

Resident, and common: some individuals seem to
leave the country in winter, so Gréndal calls it a bird
of passage. It is not unlikely that they all do, and
their places are taken for the winter by others from
Greenland and Spitzbergen.

They frequent chiefly stony or rocky places, but in
winter are found round farms and houses, like sparrows
in England. Their nests are placed in a crevice of
rock, under a boulder, in a stone-heap, or stone wall.
They are large, loose, and untidy, like a Yellow-Ammer’s,
and are made of moss, roots, and grass, with a lining
of finer grass, and some ptarmigan’s feathers or sheep’s
wool. The eges are five in number, sometimes six,
and are white, slightly tinted with grey-purple, spotted
and blotched with umber-brown and black; the latter
colour has a tinge of purple in it. I have an excep-
tional clutch which are white, thickly spotted with
light red-brown. Young birds have sometimes left
the nest by the end of June, but fresh eggs may be
found till the end of that month. The male Snow-
bunting, a very handsome bird in breeding dress, has
a very pretty note—a liquid and long-repeated warble,
sometimes uttered when the bird is perched on a
boulder, sometimes on the wing. In the latter case,
the cock circles round in wide curves, a yard or more
from the ground, occasionally pausing and hovering
like a Skylark, and at a distance looks lke nothing
so much as a large black-and-white butterfly. At that
time of year he is snow-white except the mantle,
shoulder, tail, and last two-thirds of the primary quills,

20 BIRDS OF ICELAND

which are black. The female is brown spotted with
darker brown and black, except the secondaries, which
are white. In autumn dress all ages and sexes put
on, by moult, a good deal of rust-colour on the upper
parts, and it is in this dress that they visit England.

Calcarius lapponicus (Linn.).
Lapp BUNTING.

Native name: ‘Sportitlingur’ (according to Professor
Newton, but I have never heard this name;
2Sportitlingur), Gréndal merely gives ‘Snjotit-
lingur’ and ‘ Solskrikja, the names of the Snow-
bunting, which indicate the company in which it
is found.

A rare wanderer. Faber (Prodromus, p. 15) records
an occurrence in the south without giving date or
locality. There is a specimen in the British Museum
from Iceland, an adult male, from the Gould Collec-
tion; and Grondal mentions a third (Verzeichnis,
p. 358) without locality, as having been shot in the
winter of 1877. It may very easily be commoner
than the above records would indicate, as it no doubt
associates with Snow-buntings, and is probably usually
mistaken for a bird of that species.

Sturnus vulgaris, Linn. STaR.ina.

Native name: ‘Stari, or ‘Starri’; the former is as old
as the Younger Edda.

BIRDS OF ICELAND 21

An occasional straggler of rare occurrence. There
are several earlier reports, but a specimen was shot in
December 1878 in the south, and the skin preserved
(Grondal); it is, no doubt, the one now in the Museum
at Reykjavik, which Herra Gréndal informed me had
been shot near that town. I am informed, on the
authority of Sjera Arni Jénsson of Skitustadir (Sudur
pingeyrar Sysla) that one was shot at Grimstadir on
the 3rd December 1899.

Corvus monedula, Linn. Jackpaw.

Gréndal (Skyrsla, p. 35) mentions that this bird has
been shot at Eyrarbakka by Herra P. Nielsen. As it
habitually associates with the Rook (C. frugilegus) it is
not unlikely to extend its wanderings with that bird
to Iceland at times. I have, on the Yorkshire coast
in autumn, watched Rooks coming in from across the
sea in a stream which continued all day, and amongst
them were a good many Jackdaws. On account of its
small size (13 inches, wing 9} inches) and its grey
neck, traces of which are to be found even in young
birds, it is not likely to be confused with any other
Corvine bird visiting Iceland.

Corvus corax, Linn. Raven.

Native name: ‘Hrafn’ (also ‘ Krummi, which Gréndal
considers to be an attempt at vocalising the bird’s
note, as is also‘ Hrafn’). There are, besides, dozens

bo
bo

BIRDS OF ICELAND

of ancient and more or less poetical and mytho-
logical names for this bird, if any one cares to go
and dig them up. I prefer to leave them decently
buried where they are.

A resident, formerly common, now rapidly decreasing
in numbers. The nests are harried and the adults
poisoned in many parts, because they interfere with
the duck preserves. Two fledglings we took from the
nest in 1884 had been fed by their parents on crow-
berries (of the year before, preserved under the snow)
and birds’ eggs (of Whimbrel and Golden Plover). The
crow-berry is also called in Icelandic ‘ Krakaber,’
which means the same as our name. I appended a
query in the Zodlogist, April 1886, asking the en-
lightened public whether there was known to be any
special connection between this plant and the Corvide,
beyond the crow-coloured berry, but got no response.

We saw a plucky pair of Whimbrel attack a Raven
near their nest, and ill-armed as they were, defeat him
with loss (of his own feathers, as well as of the eggs
he was lusting for; of dignity also, in a marked
manner).

The Raven bids fair to be a scarce bird in Iceland
before long. It breeds in March or April, or early in
May, in cliffs, usually in a very inaccessible place, but
sometimes in one ridiculously easy to reach. The
eges—five, or sometimes only four, in number—are
placed in a loose untidy nest of sticks and general
rubbish; the eggs are greenish-white in ground colour,
spotted, scribbled, and blotched with grey and black.

BIRDS OF ICELAND 23

The pied variety of the Raven, which seems formerly
to have been not so very uncommon in Iceland, but
commoner still in the Faeroes, was named by Vieillot
Corvus leucopheus, under the impression that it was a
distinct species, instead of an instance of that albinism
to which all black-coloured birds seem specially liable.
I have never met with one, but Mr. J. G. Millais
informs me that he saw one near Myvatn in 1889.

Corvus corone, Linn. Carrion Crow.

Native name; ‘ Faereyja-hrafn’ (so Herra Gréndal says
—Skyrsla, p. 35—but I should have imagined
this name more applicable to C. frugilegus, q.v.).

Grondal states that one was shot in Iceland on
January 16, 1881, but does not give the locality. The
present species is quite a southern bird in range, very
rare even in south Scandinavia. The young birds are
not always easy to tell from young Rooks, as the
latter have the usual Corvine nasal bristles until
maturity, which might lead to confusion between the
two species.

At all events, the visits of the Carrion Crow to
Iceland are likely to be extremely infrequent; yet it
may be well to mention that C. corone can be dis-
tinguished from C. frugilegus at all ages by its more
massive and raven-like bill, and by the purple (not
blue) sheen on the body, passing into green on the
head; and from C. cormiz by the absence of any shade
of grey from the plumage.

24 BIRDS OF ICELAND

Corvus cornix, Linn. HooprEp Crow.
Native name: ‘ Kraka.’

An occasional visitor from the Faeroes, where it is
very common.

Easily recognised from the rest of the Corvidee
visiting Iceland by its ash-grey mantle and breast,
contrasting with the purple-shot black of the rest of
the plumage. Even quite young birds are not likely
to be mistaken for those of any other species.

Corvus frugilegus, Linn. Rook.
Native name: ‘ Kraka.’

For some occult reason, young Rooks seem to visit
the Faeroes pretty regularly, and I have seen a con-
siderable number of skins from those islands, very few
of which have been those of adults with bare chin and
nostrils. They seem not uncommonly to extend their
wanderings to the south of Iceland, and even occasion-
ally to the north also. I have seen several skins at
Akureyri, and was told that they had been obtained
in the neighbourhood. My indifference, in one case,
as to the acquisition of such a rare bird seemed, I
remember, rather a puzzle to the owner, who considered
himself justified in asking ten kroner for it.

The young Rook is, as is well known, very much
like the young Carrion Crow (C. corone), and has no
bare skin round the base of the bill, but the usual

BIRDS OF ICELAND 25

Corvine fringe of bristly feathers, pointing towards
the end of the bill, and covering the nostrils. Its
bill is, however, slenderer and less raven-like, and the
gloss on the feathers is blue, and not purple. Adult
Rooks, with bare skin on the throat and forehead, very
seldom occur in Iceland indeed, but the same differ-
ences hold good in their case also.

It is somewhat singular to find a bird migrating
northwards in autumn in this hemisphere—northwards
in spring, southwards in autumn, being the almost
invariable rule.

Asio otus (Linn.). Lonc-EARED OWL.
Native name: ‘ Trid-ugla, according to Grondal.

A very rare occasional visitor. I have a record of
the shooting of an example of this species in the
Eyjafjordr in 1897. I believe it was supplied to me
as the history of a stuffed specimen now in the
Museum at Reykjavik. The only other occurrence
that has come under my notice is one noted in
Professor Newton’s letter to the editor (/dis, 1864,
pp. 131-33), where it is stated that the late William
Proctor had an example sent to him (from the north
of Iceland ?). As the northernmost range of this species
in Europe is about 63° N., it affords another instance
of a species wandering northwards on the autumn
migration, contrary to the general practice, which leads
them southwards at that time of year.

26 BIRDS OF ICELAND

Asio accipitrinus (Pall.).
SHORT-EARED OWL.

Native name: ‘ Ugla.’

Occasional visitor of rare occurrence. Its claim to
a place in the Icelandic list rested for many years on
the uncertain basis of a plate in ‘Olafsson’s Levse.
‘Herra Groéndal, however, records three modern in-
stances of its occurrence in Skyrsla (p. 34), all in the
south, and Herra P. Nielsen (Ornis, 1887, p. 157) one,
obtained at Hraungerdi in Arnes-Sysla, October 5,
1877, and one at Eyrarbakka, September 30, 1879.
He expresses an opinion that Faber’s Strix aluco
(Prodromus, p. 4) may be referred to the present
species, in which view I quite concur. I may add
that a specimen, which I take to be of this bird, was
procured for me in the early spring of 1894, some time
before my visit to Iceland in that year, in the Melrakka
Slétta (‘Fox Plains’) in the north-east; but they were
so unsuccessful in making a skin of it that they
thought it not worth sending-—to -my infinite regret,
as it would have been sufficient to identify the bird
as a visitor to the northern parts of the island.

Nyctea scandiaca (Linn.). Snowy Ow1.
Native names: ‘ Snjé-ugla,’ ‘Sneeugla, ‘ Nattugla,’
‘Kattugla.’

An occasional winter visitor, chiefly to the northern
parts. Like several other Arctic species, its visits

BIRDS OF ICELAND 27

usually coincide with severe winters and springs, when
there is a good deal of Greenland ice on the coasts.
Dr. Kjerulf informed Mr. W. E. Clarke that an adult
Snowy Owl had been shot at Hallormstadir (Sudur
Mula Sysla) in the cold summer of 1882, and others
seen—‘ no doubt a family party from a nest somewhere
in the neighbourhood, Mr. Clarke adds. In support
of this suggestion, I may mention that Mr. J. G.
Millais has described to me in a letter that he watched
one of these birds hunting a river (the Sog, not far
from the foot of pingvellir Lake) for fish, ‘exactly like
an Osprey, and saw it seize a char, ‘which it carried
off out of sight, doubtless to its young.” This would
be some time in June or July 1889, and from these
two statements it appears that the Snowy Owl remains
occasionally to breed in Iceland, in spite of the absence
of its favourite prey, the lemming.

It seems to occur in the Melrakka Slétta (north-east)
as frequently as anywhere; and I have the skin of a
female from thence, shot in the winter of 1897, and
one of my companions in 1900 picked up a fine skin
at Oddeyri, which I believe came from the same place.

It is enough to describe it as a huge white owl,
the male nearly 2 feet, the female 26 to 28 inches,
or even more, in length. In younger individuals the
white plumage is more or less spotted and barred with
black, especially on the head, back, and shoulders; this
is by degrees lost with increasing age, and the very
old birds have no black except on the claws, bill, and
pupil of the eye.

28 BIRDS OF ICELAND

A Snowy Owl generally sits on a hummock, or stone,
in an open place, for choice, and looks at some distance
like a milestone. When they have young the parents
are often very bold and aggressive, but at other times
(expertus loqguor) a Snowy Owl is usually as bad to
get at as any shy stag.

+ Haliaétus albicilla (Linn.). Sea HAGte.

Native names: ‘Orn,’ ‘assa, ‘ari’ (found in the Younger

Edda).

A resident, not common, breeding in sea cliffs, and
also in crags near an inland lake, or by a river where
fish are obtainable. It feeds inland on trout and char,
of which the heads, deeply scarred with claw-marks,
may occasionally be found by river and lake sides.
By the sea it takes sea-fish, but it does not disdain a
dead sheep. Mr. J. G. Millais tells me that he has
seen a Sea Eagle in Iceland take a very large trout,
but never saw it molest ducks. I have, however,
disturbed it when feeding on a freshly-killed Scaup,
by a river which held a good many trout.

The nest, placed on a cliff-ledge, is made of sticks,
lined with twigs, roots, or grass; by the sea a good
deal of seaweed is used. The eggs are two in number,
roundish in shape and dull in texture, measuring
31 inches by 22 inches, and are of a dirty white,
more or less spotted with red-brown; but Iceland
examples are but little spotted, in my experience, and
one I got has no spots at all.

BIRDS OF ICELAND 29

The bird is not likely to be mistaken for any other,
but I may as well say that its colour is brown (wing
quills nearly black); the tarsus (lower part of the leg)
is bare of feathers in its bottom half. In old birds the
head turns a dirty white in colour and the tail quite
white. Length: males 28 to 30, females 33 to 36
inches.

I once watched for some time two of these birds,
an old one and its progeny, in the northern Reykjadalr.
Careful instruction was being given, and the youngster
taught how to fly in large even circles above the water ;
also the old bird seemed to indicate what would be
the next lesson by ending up with several stoops on
what I took to be an imaginary fish below. I supposed
them to be mock stoops, because the bird checked
itself by spreading its wings long before it reached
the water, and once, if I was not mistaken, it stooped
when it was not above the water at ali. They finally
went off together.

Faleo candicans, Gmel.
GREENLAND FALCON.

Native name: ‘ Falki’ (?‘ Hvitifalki,’ but this is more
descriptive, perhaps, than appellative).

An occasional visitor, of which I have seen several
examples stuffed; but they were only regarded as fine
specimens of the indigenous falcon, for the two species
are not discriminated in Iceland. There is one in
Consul Havsteen’s drawing-room at Oddeyri, and one,

30 BIRDS OF ICELAND

as far as I recollect, in the sanctum of the clergyman
at Hrafnagil, near Akureyri. This species probably
visits Iceland under much the same conditions as the
Snowy Owl, but not so frequently. It is somewhat
difficult to ascertain, however, as this and the next
species are usually confused together. I think there
is a Greenland Falcon in the Museum at Reykjavik
also, but I did not make a note of it, and am not
sure.

The differences in plumage between this species and
the indigenous bird will be found under the Iceland
Falcon. The ‘white falcons’ imported from Iceland
since very early days (twelfth century, at least), and so
highly valued by falconers, were doubtless migrant
Greenlanders.

-Faleo islandus, Gmel. IceELAND FALcon.

Native names: ‘ Falk, ‘ Veidi falki’ (‘ Hunting falcon ’)
‘Haukur, ‘ Valur’ (= ‘(bird of) Battle’). ‘ Haukr’
and ‘valr’ are Eddaic names.

A resident, decreasing in numbers. This is due
apparently to two causes: the regular market that
exists for the eggs and young birds, and also the
disturbance of the duck-breeding preserves and the
consequent trapping of the old birds. The latter
mischief cannot be denied, and it is not an unusual
thing to find headless ducks lying about which the
falcons have struck down en passant and have not
taken any further notice of. This rather suggests the

BIRDS OF ICELAND a

purposeless and unfeeling way of too many English
sunners with sea-birds.

Falcons breed early, often in the end of April or
beginning of May, and place their nests, which are
made of sticks and twigs, on a ledge of a cliff, laying
usually four eggs, but sometimes three only. These
have a ground colour of pinkish white, or heht red,
and are spotted thickly and blotched irregularly with
different shades of rusty red; they are roundish in
shape, and from 24 to nearly 24 inches in length.
After the young have left the nest, the ground under-
neath will be found to be strewed with bones, mostly
those of the Rock Ptarmigan, which seem to be their
favourite food. There is an Icelandic fable that the
Falcon screams in agony, when eating a Ptarmigan, as
soon as he reaches the heart, finding then for the first
time that he has killed his long-lost sister. However
this may be, a passing Falcon once enabled us to deal
satisfactorily with a covey of Ptarmigan which we
had previously found unapproachable, which was not
fraternal. The Falcon happened to pass almost over
them, and we found them perfectly amenable after
that. Falcons are strong birds, and need as a rule
large shot to stop them, but I once, rather to my
surprise, killed one quite dead with No. 10 shot (we
were looking for snipe, and he appeared unexpectedly,
and the shot was by no means a near one).

The Iceland Falcon is a remarkably handsome bird ;
its plumage may briefly be described as ash-grey above
(white on the back of the neck) with darker grey and

32 BIRDS OF ICELAND

white bars—underneath white, with dark grey stripes
on the throat, spots on the breast, bars on the flanks
and thighs. Length: males 20 to 22 inches, wing
14 to 143 inches; females 23 to 26 inches, wing 14}
to 1614 inches. In young birds the upper parts are
brownish grey and almost uniform in tint, with the
merest indications of the dark and light barring. The
dark grey spots and bars of the underparts of the adult
are represented by longitudinal streaks of sooty brown,
annually decreasing in area till they become the dark
erey spots and bars of maturity. The prevailing colour
of the upper parts of the Iceland Falcon, then, is grey
in maturity, brown-grey in adolescence ; the correspond-
ing colour of the Greenland species being whzte, more
or less streaked and spotted above with brown-grey.
The Icelander, after the first moult, has the thighs and
flanks barred; the Greenlander never carries a bar on
the underparts, but instead pyriform spots, compara-
tively small in mature birds, the stalk of the pear
pointing to the beak.

This bird has borne from very early times a high
reputation amongst falconers. Falcons from Iceland
were especially valued. They are mentioned from this
point of view in the Sagas (eg. in Saga Hakonar
Gamla, which can be found in the Biskupa Ségur, a
collection published in Copenhagen in 1858 and
onwards). We learn that Astrid, the daughter of
‘Olafr Tryggvason, owned a Falcon from Iceland;
King Hikon the Elder sent several as choice presents
to the Sultan at Tunis; and so forth. Iceland Falcons

BIRDS OF ICELAND 3h)

have always been considered difficult birds to train,
though faster than Peregrines; and nowadays the
latter have displaced the Gyrfalcons in the affections
of the few who still follow, under difficulties, this
ancient but excessively fascinating sport. In old
days, however, the Gyrfalcons were the favourites
amongst falconers; and the kings of Denmark and
Norway, owing to the indifference of the Icelanders,
used to send their own royal falconers to Iceland
to take the young falcons, and the remains of the
huts which they used for this purpose are even now
to be seen on certain low hills with a good look-
out: one near Reykjavik (teste Grondal) still bears
the name of Valhus (‘ Falcon-house’).

It certainly seems more appropriate to select this
noble and historical bird as the national sien, or
crest, of Iceland, than the other candidate for this
honour—the ignoble, if commercially valuable, codfish !

+ Falco esalon, Tunstall. Meruin.

Natwe name: ‘Smirill’ (‘Smyrill’ in the Edda’. The
form ‘Smirl’ given by Professor Newton I have
not met with, nor has Grondal, apparently. Pro-
fessor Newton also gives ‘ Dvergfalki, which is
only an adoption of the Danish ‘ Dvergfalk,’ not
naturalised.

Summer visitant, arriving in April and remaining
till September. Nowhere very common in my ex-
perience. The nest is sometimes placed on the

C

34 BIRDS OF ICELAND

eround, and is usually partly sheltered by a bush
of willow, and consists of a handful of Vacciniwm
twigs in a slight hollow. I have seen, however,
several inaccessible nests in crags, and am inclined
to think that they are becoming cliff-breeders by a
process of natural elimination. The ground nests are
so systematically robbed that no Merlins but those
that have found out the manifest advantages of breed-
ing in a precipice get a chance to propagate their
species. The eggs are usually four in number, some-
times five. Farther south, as in England, six is not an
uncommon number, but many species seem to reduce
the number of eggs the farther north they range.
The eggs are roundish, about 1} inches long, reddish
white, spotted and blotched with bright rust red, often
so thickly that the spots are almost confluent.

The female is brown above, with five pale bars
across the tail; underparts buffy white, streaked,
except on the throat, with dull dark brown. Length
12 inches, wing 8} inches. Young males resemble the
female, but turn bluer above on adolescence. Very
fine old males, clear blue-grey above, brown-striped
rufous below, but still keeping the white throat, are
occasionally to be met with. Length of male about
10 inches, wing 7 a inches.

The general food seems to be the Meadow Pipit,
but the Merlin is quite capable of tackling a larger
bird, and I have seen them paying undesired attentions
to the Redwings; once I saw a very fine flight indeed
at a snipe.

BIRDS OF ICELAND

wy)
On

+ Phalacrocorax carbo (Linn.). Cormorant.

Native names: ‘Skarfur, ‘Dilaskarfur’ (ce. ‘Spotted
Skarfur’), ‘’Utilegu-skarfur’ (‘Outlaw Skart’),
‘Hnuplungur’ (Snatcher).

Resident and abundant, breeding in colonies, chiefly
round the northern coasts.

It nests on ledges of cliffs, or on rocky islets, and
makes a large, untidy

and subsequently filthy—nest
of seaweed and rubbish, in which it lays three or four
egos of pale blue, usually so much encrusted with a
softish white chalky substance (which soon gets very
dirty) that the real colour of the eggs does not appear.
For their size see the Gannet’s. The smell of a colony
of Cormorants’ nests is a thing not easily forgotten.

The bird is glossy black with a whitish patch on
the throat, and also (in summer dress only) on either
thigh. It has somewhat of a crest, worn on the back
of the head, not on the forehead as in the Shag.
Length 36 inches, wing 144 inches. The young bird is
sooty brown above, whitey brown beneath.

The Cormorant feeds on fish, often straying some
distance up rivers, and doing there great damage to
the younger trout and salmon. In such localities they
should be warned off—with a gun; at sea they seem
to do next to no harm, as they feed largely on fish of
no value to man.

This species has fourteen tail-feathers.

36 BIRDS OF ICELAND

+ Phalacrocorax graculus (Linn.). Sac.

Native name : ‘Topp-skarfur’ (Skart with a topknot).
Groéndal adds the name ‘Hnaukr’ or ‘ Hnokr,
meaning ‘pinnacle, which he thinks has been
given to this bird from its upright carriage
when perched; but 1t might equally easily apply
to its habitual perching places.

Resident and common, breeding in similar places
to the last species, but chiefly on the southern and
western coasts. Like the last, also, it is a gregarious
breeder, but not to the same extent. Its nest is like
the Cormorant’s, and smells quite as nasty, and the
egos are only distinguishable, in the absence of the
birds, by their rather smaller size, and (usually)
smaller comparative diameter.

The bird is smaller than the Cormorant, and has no
white patches on throat or flanks. Its colour is black
with a strong bottle-green sheen, and it has a crest on
the forehead, reflexed at its end, which is worn in the
spring only. Length 27 to 28 inches, wing 10? inches.
Young birds are of a sooty brown, but begin to show at
a very early age some indications of the green sheen
which has gained for this bird in England its common
name of Green Cormorant.

There are only twelve tail-feathers in this species,
the Cormorant having fourteen.

It may be borne in mind that Gmelin named
this bird Pelecanus cristatus. Several continental

BIRDS OF ICELAND 37

writers have misinterpreted this, and recorded Pele-
canus onocrotalus—the true Pelican—as a strageler
to Iceland. Gmelin, Cuvier, etc., only meant to
refer to the Shag.

+- Sula bassana (Linn.). GANNET.

Native name: ‘Sula, occasionally ‘ Hafsula.’

Resident and common round the coasts, breeding
gregariously in a number of isolated colonies. One
is on the Westmann Islands, one on Grimsey, one
(I am told) off the north-west peninsula. There
is obviously one also on the Fuglasker, off Cape
teykjanes, for I have watched from a steamer the
Gannets laboriously carrying small loads of seaweed
to, I think, Eldey. There must also be one in the
Skagafjérdr, from the number of birds to be seen
there. Not unlikely it is on Drangey, the last strong-
hold of Grettir Asmundarsson, the Icelandic Robin
Hood. Also, from the same reasons, I expect there
is another colony on, or near, Cape Reykjanes, the
north-east point of Iceland—and, no doubt, others
elsewhere.

The nests are of seaweed and grass, and the Gannet
lays one ege only, much like that of a Cormorant or
Shag, and with the licht-bluish shell overlaid with the
same kind of chalky deposit, which has the same
tendency to get dirty when paddled upon.

The eggs of the three species have, generally, the
following measurements :—

38 BIRDS OF ICELAND

Length. Breadth.
Cormorant, 23 13
1
Shag, a1 11 to 14
Gannet, a+ 13 English inches.

The Gannet, as most people know, is of a creamy
white with black wing-primaries; it is about 34 inches
in length, wing 19 inches. The young are sooty with
white spots, and grow gradually lighter in colour till
their sixth year, when they are adult.

The food of the Gannet consists of surface-swimming
fish (herring, for choice) which it spies when circling
at a considerable height in the air, and, closing its
wings, hurls itself headlong upon, dashing up the water
on contact and going some distance below the surface.
I believe, having once watched for some time a number
of these birds feeding about a hundred yards from
where I was anchored ina small boat, that they seldom
miss their aim. By calling attention to the exact
locality of a shoal of herrings, they often render an
unintentional service to fishing smacks on the look-
out, quite compensating man (who considers he has a
sort of proprietary right in everything everywhere),
for the toll or tithe they themselves take of the shoal
of herrings.

Ardea cinerea, Linn. Heron.

Native name : ‘ Hegri.’

On this bird Herra Gréndal remarks (Jsl. Vogeln.
p. 594), that its name is universally known, though the

BIRDS OF ICELAND 39

bird is so rare. I suspect that this must often happen
with a nation of great readers, if their early literature
is mixed up with that of other countries as that of
Iceland is with that of Norway and Denmark. I have
been exceptionally fortunate, therefore, in having met
with this bird on three different occasions, and in three
different years, but always on sea-fjords, and always
singly. Gréndal considers it most likely to be met
with on the west and south-east, with which he is
probably most conversant. My actual experience
ranges from north-west to north-east. It is only an
occasional visitor, and has never been known to remain
for the winter, and its slow-flapping flight and blunt-
ended wings, with its grey plumage and black ‘ points,’
will serve to distinguish it from any other bird. The
Heeranes, in the Skagafjordr, has apparently gained
its name from the occurrence of this bird there.

7 Plegadis falcinellus (Linn.). Guossy Ibis.

It is stated by Reinhardt (Vidensk. Selsk. Afh., vii.
96), that five examples were shot in the south of
Iceland and sent to Copenhagen in the spring of 1824.
In the remote chance of this bird’s appearing in Ice-
land again, it may possibly be worth while to mention
that its figure and size are those of a Curlew and that
at a distance it looks black; on a nearer examination,
the head, neck, and lower surface will be found to be
of a dull deep red, the wings and back nearly black,
with a metallic gloss of green and purple. Length
about 22 inches, wing 10% inches.

40 BIRDS OF ICELAND

Anser cinereus, Meyer. Grey LAG-GOOSE.
Natwe name: ‘Gragaes’ (old form ‘ gragas ’).

The Geese of Iceland are a dreadful puzzle. I really
think the more any one investigates them, the less he
knows about the matter.

At all events, the present species is the Wild Goose
of Iceland, and seems largely to outnumber all the
others put together. It is a summer visitor, breeding
in out-of-the-way parts of the interior, in view of the
fact that at moulting-time geese are practically flight-
less and need, therefore, seclusion from all possible
foes. It does not seem justifiable to suppose, as
writers on the birds of Iceland have done, that one
species of goose breeds in the north and another in the
south. They all alike breed in the desert interior, as
far as they can get from man, with enough vegetation
for the young, when born, to feed on. If the river on
which they nest runs south, they make their way
southwards when the young can travel and moulting
dangers are nearly past; if north, then vice versd,

_ Many of the rivers rise in the south (e.g. those from
the Vatna Jékull) and flow north, so that a bird which
makes its appearance on the Skjalfandafljot (for ex-
ample) may have bred in the very south of Iceland,
where that river rises.

The nest is placed on the ground, amongst willow
bushes, if there are any, or any kind of vegetation,
and is not uncommonly on an island in a lake or
river. This is not entirely to avoid man (the great

BIRDS OF ICELAND 41

danger nowadays), but all Icelandic birds that breed
on the ground choose an island if they can find one
and.this habit seems to be a survival from the ancient
days, when Arctic foxes were abundant, as they are not
now. The nest is made of a few sticks and twigs and
dead grass, or other vegetable matter, and when the four
or five eggs are laid, the female packs them in a lining
of her own grey down. The eggs are large, 35 inches
by nearly 25 inches, and are creamy white in colour.

As they are early breeders, and nest in places where
the vegetation is nearly always scanty and backward,
the old birds sometimes have to travel some distance,
during the first part of their stay, to more suitable
feeding-crounds. We came across such a feeding-
place, evidently frequented by a considerable number
of geese, early in June 1900.

The upper parts of the Grey Lag-Goose, including
head and neck, are of a dull grey brown, becoming
almost white on the abdomen. There are sometimes a
few small black blotches on the latter, and, in very old
birds, a few white feathers round the base of the bill.
(Care must be taken that these two features do not
cause confusion with the White-fronted Goose.) The
rump and ‘shoulder’ of the wing are of a blue-grey,
and these are two of the strongest distinctive marks of
this species. The feet and bill are of a light flesh-
pink, and the latter is terminated by a white ‘nail’ on
the upper mandible. Leneth of gander 33 to 36 inches,
wing 17 inches. Females are about 30 inches, wing
16 inches.

42 BIRDS OF ICELAND

+ Anser albifrons (Scop.).
WHITE-FRONTED GOOSE.

Native name: ‘Helsingi. Gréndal applies this name
to Bernicla leucopsis, and calls the present species
Gragaes, It is possible that he does so correctly,
and Iam quite prepared to accept his emendation ;
but nine out of ten Icelanders mean the White-
fronted when they speak of the Helsingi.

Faber was the first to notice this species, in 1820,
and found it breeding on the pvera and pjorsa rivers
in the south. I am not aware that any one has since
had a similar experience, and Faber’s statement has
been questioned by Kriiper (Vawm., 1857, second article,
‘Anser albifrons . . . briitet wahrscheinlich keine auf
Island’), and he calls it a wanderer only on its way to
and from Spitzbergen and Greenland. It is precisely
because it does breed in these two countries that it
may be expected to do so to a less extent in Iceland,
and those Arctic species (as the Bean Goose), which
have no reason for passing by Iceland, may be put
down as unlikely to breed there. JI have myself
obtained a specimen of A. albifrons on the Skjalfanda-
fljot, shot on July 30, 1885, as it was making its way
with others down to the coast. I have not the least
doubt that this bird had bred in the interior, as it had
hardly recovered from the moult. In any country
where recently moulted geese are met with, it would
be safe to infer that they had bred there. If anybody

BIRDS OF ICELAND 43

chooses to devote a summer to considerable personal
discomfort, and some expense, by making an early
visit to Iceland and following goose-haunted rivers
(such as the one. mentioned above) to their upper
waters, 16 is likely enough that he might be able to
solve in part the problem of the breeding of geese in
Iceland. It might only result in a ‘ wild-goose chase’
of a less productive kind, however, for the difficulties
would be considerable. I would willingly give any
help in my power to any one who contemplated
making the attempt. As far as I can ascertain, owing
to increased persecution at the hands of those who
want their eggs to eat or to sell, all the wild geese in
Iceland have withdrawn themselves still farther into
the interior of late years.

The nests of wild geese are much alike; but the eggs
of the present species, which we may put down as a very
rare breeder in Iceland, are decidedly small, measuring
about 3 inches by 2, and are creamy white in tint.

The bird is of a brown-grey colour above (not blue-
grey on the rump, like the Grey Lag); the breast is of
a dirty grey and is marked, in the gander especially,
with coarse irregular black bars. There is a con-
spicuous margin of white feathers round the base of
the bill, which is orange-coloured with a white terminal
‘nail.’ Feet and legs orange also. ‘In young birds
(which are duskier) the white ring round the bill and
the black blotches on the breast are almost, or quite,
absent. Length of male 26 to 27 inches (female rather

less), wing 16 inches.

44 BIRDS OF ICELAND

+ [Anser segetum (Gmel.). BEAN GOOSE.

The only record of this species is to be found in the
statement of the late William Proctor (see bis, 1864,
p. 132) that he had received the bird from Iceland.
The Bean Goose is an Arctic-breeding species (unlike
the Grey Lag) and does not extend its range to Green-
land or Spitzbergen, but rather to north-east Europe. I
do not mean to assert the impossibility of its occurrence
there, seeing that the Grey Plover (Squatarola hel-
vetica), Which has pretty much the same breeding
range, has more than once occurred as a rare straggler ;
but I. look upon the statement with some doubt, and
certainly refuse to admit its claim to be considered
a breeding species in Iceland. ]

+ Anser brachyrhynchus, Baillon.
PINK-FOOTED GOOSE.
Native name: ‘Gragaes.’

Professor Newton (Baring Gould, App. p. 414) sur-
mised that this species might be found to breed in
Iceland. It does so in Spitzbergen, and may therefore
be reasonably supposed to do so in Iceland, which
would not be much out of its route. The same gentle-
man subsequently states that he saw a specimen in
the Durham Museum, with eggs which had been sent
with it from Iceland to the late William Proctor (bis,
1864, p. 132). I have additional reason for supposing
it to breed in Iceland, where, however, it must be

BIRDS OF ICELAND 45

extremely rare. Evidence from Iceland on critical
points in ornithology is usually so much muddled up
by native collectors that it has to be received with
great caution; we want a few goose-skins shot off eggs
by a trustworthy collector. I saw three undoubted
specimens of the short-billed Pink-foot which had been
shot by the farmer at pingey, on the lower reaches
of the Skjalfandafljot, in August 1894. They were
making their way to the sea at the time, and were still
in a partially flightless condition, and when I saw
them they were in the possession of some young men
who had bought them and were unwilling to part with
them—to my great regret.

The eggs of the Pink-footed Goose are nearly 31
inches long by a little less than 21 inches, and are
quite white.

The bird is specially noticeable by its short bill,
- which is but little over 14 inches in length, and a good
deal shorter than the head. It is of a greyish brown
all over, except under the tail, which is white, and the
belly lighter than the rest. The shoulder is greyish,
but more of a lead-grey than the corresponding part of
the Grey Lag. The short bill is pinkish with black
edges and ‘nail, and the feet and legs are pink.
Length 27 to 283 inches, the gander rather the larger;
wing 16 to 17 inches.

46 BIRDS OF ICELAND

+ Bernicla leucopsis (Bechst.).
BARNACLE GOOSE. |
Native name: ‘ Helsingi,’ according to Grondal.

This species breeds in Greenland and Spitzbergen,
and passes on migration, but only irregularly, through
Iceland. Eggert ‘Olafsson (feise, 1772) gives a figure
of an Iceland specimen, which appears to be the first
record; and Faber states that it is most plentiful in
the south-west, though not rare in the north, and gives
the date of its appearance (end of May, reappearing in
the beginning of September). Of late years it does
not seem to have been so much noticed, and Grondal
has apparently seldom seen it. Four examples were
brought to him in November 1885, and several were
seen, only, on the 23rd June 1887 (a singular date),
near Reykjavik. We may put it down as an irregular
migrant along the coasts in spring and autumn.

+ Bernicla brenta (Pall.). Brent Goose.

Native name : ‘ Hrota,’ ‘ Hrotgaes’ (?‘ Hréta,’ and ‘ Hrot-
gaes =the goose seen, or shot, in stormy weather)
also ‘ Margaes’ (Sea goose).

This bird also appears to pass on migration in spring
and autumn along the coasts of Iceland on its way to
and from its more northerly breeding-grounds (Green-
land, Spitzbergen, etc.). Faber was informed that it
nested in the Eyjafjordr in June 1819, but he was

BIRDS OF ICELAND 47

probably misled here, though there is no impossibility
in the thing; but the Brent and Barnacle Geese seem
only to be met with on the coast, and I have never
heard of either inland. Faber gives the date October
1820, and Nielsen of Hyrarbakka has shot them in
October 1878, September 28, 1880, and May 8, 1881,
which are all probable enough. I have never met
with the bird myself (nor been in Iceland early, or
late, enough in the year to be likely to do so), but I
have seen a stuffed specimen in the Museum at
Reykjavik, and my friend Herra St. Stephensson tells
me that a small goose visits the Eyjafjordr pretty
recularly in autumn, and only stays a few days; about
there they put it down as the Margaes. So that we
may conclude that it visits Iceland as a migrant in
spring and autumn, on its way to and from its more
Arctic breeding-grounds, and with considerably more
regularity than the Bernacle Goose.

+ Cygnus musicus, Bechst. WHooPER SWAN.

Nate names: ‘’Alpt, ‘’Alft, ‘Svanur’ (the first name
is Eddaic; Grondal connects the first two with
the Latin ‘ albus’).

A resident in considerable numbers, breeding on the
remoter fells on almost every tarn or lake of any size
but I only know of one lake, and that a very large one

-(Arnarvatn), where more than one pair breeds. They
are very noisy and quarrelsome birds, and if a strange
pair or individual on the feed should stray to the tarn

48 BIRDS OF ICELAND

which they consider to be their own for the time, the
resident pair at once advance to the attack, the male
leading, the female in reserve close behind; and the
intruders are only ejected after a great deal of trumpet-
ing and chasing and swaggering, which is most amusing
to watch. The nest is sometimes placed on an islet,
sometimes on a spit of land, sometimes in a secluded
marshy spot close to a mountain loch; it consists of
a conical heap of moss and vegetable rubbish, with a
few willow sticks and twigs of Blaber (Vacciniwm
uliginosum). The nests are evidently used year after
year, with a little repairing and furbishing up, con-
sisting chiefly of a fresh lining of moss and grass.
Therefore they get very solid in time, being sometimes
four feet in diameter at the base and nearly a yard high.
In the cavity at the top are placed the eggs, from three
to six in number, elliptical in shape, of a creamy white,
soon dirtied by muddy feet; they vary a good deal in
size, eg. in a set of five from the same nest (I took
them myself) the length varies from 3? to 42 inches.
Eggs are laid from the middle of May to the middle
of June, according to the earliness of the season and
the amount of snow and ice on the fells. We saw
cygnets on June 22. I have repeatedly seen swans
come within easy shot of me on horseback, and they
certainly are a grand feature of the landscape, and add
a singular attraction to the wild and desolate regions
where they live.

They do not invariably live in desolate regions, how-
ever. There is a singular phenomenon connected with

BIRDS OF ICELAND 49

this bird, which is just hinted at by Baring Gould
(p. 155). In lower Vatnsdalur, in Hunavatns Sysla,
is a wide shallow lake, through which the river
runs. On this, early every spring, an immense flock of
Whooper Swans assembles on their return inland from
the sea-coasts. Some, no doubt, pair and go off to the
fells, but a great number pass the whole summer
on this lake, forming a picturesque addition to the
already picturesque neighbourhood. The neighbouring
farmers, however, on whose land they graze, do not
altogether approve of them. We estimated their
numbers at near one hundred.

In the Meld of November 2, 1895, appeared a most
singular statement professing to describe the capture
of wild swans in north-east Iceland, which I feel com-
pelled to regard as a ‘later Saga.’ The writer, who
signs himself ‘Jon Stephanoson, Ph.D., tells us that
the farmers of a certain neighbourhood he in wait on
pony-back for the swans on their line of flight to
the sea after moulting-time is over, having previously
provided themselves with ‘dogs, rattles, and various
instruments of noise.’ On the appearance of the
swans, the farmers raise such a pandemonium of sound
that the young swans in the flock ‘descend helpless
like falling stones.’ They drop ‘to earth as if they
were shot, the old ones taking no notice; this plan
is ‘used successfully every year, while ‘those who use
it prefer it to shooting. Moreover, it ‘for centuries
has been in use in the north-east of Iceland.’

The editor pertinently remarks that no writer on

D

50 BIRDS OF ICELAND

Iceland during the centuries appears to have heard of
it. Professor Newton mentions that ‘Olafsson (1772)
and Olavius (1780) speak of swan-hunts while the
birds are moulting only. No doubt a flock of swans
might be surprised on the ground by a sudden dash of
yelling riders and dogs, and so much confused that a
young bird or two might be knocked over. But it
looks as if some one had been ‘filling up’ (to use an
expressive Americanism) Jon Stephanoson, Ph.D.

Bewick’s Swan (C. bewicki, Yarrell) has never been
ascertained to visit Iceland—various guide-book state-
ments to the contrary notwithstanding. See Brit. Mus.
Cat.: Birds, vol. xxvii.-p. 31. It is not in the least
likely to occur; the breeding range is Siberian, from
Koleuiev eastward.

+ Tadorna cornuta (S. G. Gmel.).
SHELD- Duck.

Native name: ‘ Brandgas’ (the Danish ‘ Brandgaas’).

Grondal (Skyrsla, p. 49) mentions that one was shot
in Hafnarfjordr on 27th January 1894, which is now
in the museum. No other specimen is known to have
been obtained in Iceland, but there have been several
appearances.in the Faeroes, and it breeds not uncom-
monly along the coasts of Norway.

BIRDS OF ICELAND 51

+. Tadorna casarea (Linn. ).
Ruppy SHELD-DUCcK.

Native name: none.

An inhabitant of South Asia, North Africa, and
South-east Europe, which strays unaccountably in
many directions. Several have been shot in the North
of Scotland, several in Sweden, and elsewhere in the
north-west. In August 1892, a flock appeared in the
south-west of Iceland, and three were shot at Eyrar-
bakka by Herra P. Nielsen, and two more in the
Eyjafjordr (north) a little later.

+Anas boseas, Linn. Common Witp Duck.

Nate names: ‘Stokkond’ (Grondal explains ‘stokkr’
to mean a rivulet or drain; but surely it is the
Scandinavian ‘stok-and’=‘tree-stump duck’ ?);
‘Groenhofdi’ (4 only,=‘egreenhead’), ‘Gra-dnd’
(2, partim), ‘ Husénd’ (partim); to which Grondal
adds ‘Blakollsond’ (blue-headed duck) and
‘Kilond’ (also = drain-duck).

Resident, though, no doubt, partially migratory,
and pretty abundant, as its wealth of names would
indicate. Breeds in marshes amongst long grass and
sedge, occasionally on dry hill-sides (even birch woods)
at a considerable distance from water. The eggs are,
as is well known, greenish drab, and about 24 inches

long.

52 BIRDS OF ICELAND

No description of so familiar a bird is necessary.
Hybrids between this and other ducks are not very
unusual, but I have heard of occurrences of the kind
in Iceland.

+Anas strepera, Linn. GADWALL.

Native name: ‘Gyra-ond, vaguely. Grondal specifies
it as ‘ Litla gra-dnd, but that name is not par-
ticularly applicable, and I have always heard it
given to the female Teal.

Very scarce, and so far only met with on Myvatn in
Southern pingeyrar Sysla, as far as I have heard.
Faber was the first to discover it there in June 1819,
but he obtained no specimens. W. Proctor got the
egos in 1837, and later he had two skins of the bird
sent to him (Newton, Jbis, 1864, p. 132). In 1862
Messrs. Shepherd and Upcher not only got the eggs,
but shot the bird from them, and a few days later the
drake. In 1885 Carter and I got the eggs, and I saw
the bird quite near enough to the nest to feel pretty
certain about it. Later we compared the eggs and
down with Mr. Seebohm’s, and none of us had a shade
of doubt left on the subject. I have had no definite
records since.

The nest is made of grass, and is sometimes at a
distance from water; like all ducks’ nests it gets
a lining of down plucked from the parent’s breast, as
soon as incubation begins. ‘The eggs, six to twelve
in number, are of a greenish buff, and a shade over

BIRDS OF ICELAND Da

two inches long: sometimes the green tinge disappears
by fading, but often a trace remains. The Gadwall
feeds on vegetable food, and is therefore never coarse
in flavour; but the ornithologist in Iceland is never
likely to get many chances of forming his own opinion
on this point.

The Gadwall can be always recognised by its
marbled grey appearance, and the chestnut patch on
the wing formed by the median coverts, succeeded by
a white speculum. The chestnut patch is visible a
long way off. The leneth of the male is 20 to
21 inches, wing 10$ to 11 inches. The female is a
little smaller, and duskier in tints. The young are
very hard to distinguish from those of the Common
Wild Duck (A. boscas), but have a rather slenderer
bill, with a more decurved upper outline, and a
yellowish tinge on the throat and cheeks.

I stated my opinion (/dis, 1886, p. 49) that a nest-
ful of eggs with down which we found in 1885 would
prove to be those of the Shoveller. As the name of
this bird has, in consequence, got into print in con-
nection with Iceland, I will take this opportunity to
say that that opinion proved to be unfounded. We
never saw the. bird, and it was only the look of this
nestful of eggs that led us to connect the Shoveller
with Iceland at all.

54 BIRDS OF ICELAND

+ Dafila acuta (Linn.). Pryratn.

Native names: ‘Grasond’ (Grass-duck), ‘Grafénd’ (an
apparent corruption of the former, which I have
not heard), ‘ Langviu-graénd.’

A summer visitor, not very uncommon, especially
in the north. JI have found it fairly common near
Myvatn, and have taken eggs there and in other
places. The nest is placed within easy reach of water,
but usually in a dryish spot amongst willow bushes
and decumbent shrubs, and is generally well lined
with dead leaves, and subsequently, about the time
that incubation is contemplated, with down. The eggs
are rather small for the size of the bird, are six to nine
in number, and of a greenish buff colour, measuring
under 21 inches in length. The food of the bird is
chiefly vegetable, varied with fresh-water mollusca, and
such insects and larvee as may come in its way in the
fresh-water lakes, tarns, and rivers where it prefers
to feed; it is therefore an excellent bird for the table.

The drake is a handsome fellow, with a brown head
and neck showing a bronze gloss, white throat and
underparts, back and sides white finely vermiculated
with black, wing brown with a glossy green white-
edged speculum, and two central tail-feathers which
are narrow and black, projecting three inches or a
little more beyond the rest of the tail. Length,
including the tail, 26 to 28 inches; wing 104 inches.
The female is rather like that of the Wild Duck

BIRDS OF ICELAND 55

(Anas boscas), but is longer in the neck, smaller in
the bill, and slenderer generally, and has the same
clossy green speculum as the male. The tail-feathers,
too, are somewhat pointed and have oblique buff bars
underneath, which no other duck in Europe has.

+ Querquedula crecca (Linn.). TEAt.

Native names: ‘Krikond, ‘ Urt’ (connected apparently
with a word meaning ‘root’), and ‘ Urtond’ (par-
tim), ‘ Ort, ‘ Litla gra-ond’ (? 9).

A summer visitor principally, but some few remain
through the winter. Pretty common, and generally
distributed throughout the country in suitable localities.
The nest is placed under a dwarf-willow bush, or
amongst vegetation of some sort, not far from water;
and six to ten eggs are laid in it, of a dark cream
colour, occasionally verging on greenish, but this tint
is not permanent. Their length is about 1? inches.
The bird is easily recognised from its small size (only
144 inches long, wing 7} inches), and only the follow-
ing species could be mistaken for it. The drake has
a ruddy-brown head, with a broad stripe of black,
glossed with green, beginning just in front of the eye
and proceeding to the nape, bordered with buff. The
body is light grey pencilled with black (the flank-
feathers being very valuable to the fisherman as the
well-known ‘teal wing’); on the breast these pen-
cillings turn to spots, The grey-brown wing has a

56 BIRDS OF ICELAND

black speculum glossed with green and bordered with
buff. The female is a diminutive of the Common
Wild Duck, and has a less resplendent speculum than
the drake. From the middle of July till the end of
September the drake (as is the case with the drakes
of all, or almost all, species of duck) puts on a sort of
close imitation of the female’s plumage called some-
times the ‘eclipse dress.’

The food consists of fresh-water plants and other
vegetable matter, with mollusca and other aquatic
fry; and the flesh of the Teal is justly held in great
estimation for the table.

+ Querquedula circia (Linn.). GARGANEY.

Native name: ‘Taumond. As far as I know, the only
recorded occurrence of this species is the example
which Preyer states to have been shot on Myvatn
on June 16, 1860, so that it is pretty fortunate
in having a local name at all.

The drake can be recognised by its brown-mottled
head and neck, with a long white stripe over the
eye backwards; elongated scapulars, which are white
with black edges; blue-grey shoulder; green speculum
with white border, and white underparts. Length
16 inches, wing 7? inches. The female is rather
smaller and duller. The eggs resemble those of the
Teal, but are a shade larger (just under two inches long),
and have no green in them, being of a pure cream

BIRDS OF ICELAND 57

colour. Any record of the nest in Iceland will require
to be authenticated by the skin of the parent, shot
off them.

Preyer states that the specimen shot on Myvatn
had ten to twelve ducklings with it (Reise, p. 408),
and adds that the nest was taken on the Eyjafjordr on
July 10, 1860, by a certain Arni ‘Yngjaldsson, but as
he describes the eggs as ‘griinlich schmuzig weisser’
in colour, this rather points to a nest of the Teal, not
of the Garganey.

+ Mareca penelope (Linn.). Wuicron.

Native names: ‘Raudhotsi gra-dnd’ (Redheaded grey
duck), ‘Urténd’ (partim), ‘ Rauddufu-6nd’ (‘Red
dove duck,’ a rather stupid name, which I have
not heard).

A summer visitor, becoming commoner towards the
north. It is considered somewhat rare in the south,
but we saw a good many on pingvallavatn early in
June 1900, and took a nest there. There is a good
deal of confusion amongst Icelanders respecting the
females of the various ducks, and they nearly all get
the name of ‘ gra-ond’ (grey duck) in consequence. No
doubt the female ducks are difficult to distinguish in
the case of any one who never has had the chance to
see good figures, or named specimens, and does not
use a field-glass. The wonder rather to my mind is
that the average Icelander, considering his oppor-

58 BIRDS OF ICELAND

tunities, knows so much about his country’s birds; the
average Englishman knows a good deal less.

The drake, as two of its vernacular names seem to
imply, has a red head and neck, with a light buff
crown; breast white; mantle grey pencilled with
black; ‘shoulder’ white; speculum glossy green with
black border. Length 18 inches, wing 104 inches.
The female is flecked with light brown all over, more
buff below; has the green speculum and also the white
shoulder.

The nest is placed amongst sedges or thick grass
or under a willow bush near water, and in it are laid
six to ten eggs of a light glossy cream colour, in length
2¢ inches. I once found a Wigeon’s nest with two
or three Pintail’s eggs in it, and the two birds seemed
to be in perfect harmony; but I suspect that ‘ructions’
would ensue when the ducklings appeared. The
Wigeon feeds on bog grasses and vegetable matter,
and is always good for the table.

+ [Fuligula ferina (Linn.). Pocrarp.

Native name: ?‘ Raudhéfda-6nd’ (partim).

Mohr (forség, 1781) reports having seen a Pochard
in the Eyjafjordr; and on June 20, 1860 (a fruitful
year in novelties), a Herr Gehin is related by Preyer
to have shot another on the lake at pingvellir, in the
south, which he (Preyer) subsequently saw (fezse,
p- 430). No one has seen this species in Iceland
since.

BIRDS OF ICELAND 59

The drake Pochard may be recognised—if any one
ever meets with him in Iceland again—by his chest-
nut head and neck; black breast; shoulders and back
white, finely vermiculated with black; dull grey alar
speculum; bill black, with a broad blue-grey band
across the middle. Length nearly 20 inches, wine
8+ inches. The female is dingy brown with some
approach to the finely-lined white mantle, and a white
chin.

Pochards live a good deal on fresh water, and are
then, though diving-ducks, excellent for the table; in
the winter on the sea they grow fishy in flavour, like
the rest of the diving kind, and are about as acceptable
on the dinner-table as a Scaup. |

+ [Fuligula nyroca (Giildenstiidt).
WHITE-EYED DUCK.

Native name: none.

Mohr (forség) states that he met with this bird
on one of the northern rivers in 1780, or 1781. Faber
(Prodromus, pp. 72-73) relates that he saw a flock of
White-eyed Ducks on the Eyjafjordr on May 20, 1820,
and subsequently found a nest which he believed to
be of this species. Lastly on March 10, 1821, he saw
another flock at Eyrarbakka in Arnes-Sysla. Gréndal
merely relates these items without comment, and
Professor Newton seems somewhat sceptical also. The
bird has never even bred in Britain, and is very rare
north of the Baltic. Though Faber is most careful

60 BIRDS OF ICELAND

and accurate in general, I feel bound to submit that
modern confirmation of the occurrence of /. nyroca in
Iceland is necessary. ]

+Fuligula marila (Linn.). Scaup Duck.

Native names: ‘Duk-ond’ (2.e. the duck which ‘ ducks’),
and by corruption, ‘ Duggond.’

Summer visitor, abundant, especially towards the
north. The plentifulness of this species at Myvatn
may be inferred when I mention that Mr. Thomas
Carter and I counted on one small group of islands in
that lake 305 nests of the Scaup with eggs on July 13,
1885, and at that point stopped counting from sheer
weariness—and 120, two days before, in the same
district. Later on, every tarn and lake in the north
swarms with Scaups, old and young, and a nuisance
they are—quite as bad as pheasants in the turnip-
fields in September—being almost uneatable. They
are distinctly less nasty, however (especially young
birds) at this time, before they get to the sea, than
when shot on the latter, which is our usual experience
of them in England. But I would rather dine off a
cuillemot, any day. Mandt’s Black Guillemot (Uria
mandtt) I have found very palatable. If I appear to
consider the Iceland bird fauna from a gastronomic
point of view, I should like to explain that I do so
because in that country I trust as far as possible to my
rod and gun to keep the table supplied, and, though
by no means fastidious, have no preference for what

BIRDS OF ICELAND 61

is distinctly nasty ; and as other ornithologists may like
to lead the same independent kind of life there, a few
hints may not be thrown away. When I skin a bird
the best parts of the remains, unless nasty, go into the
next stew. Not Scaup, though, unless there is a
serious dearth.

The Scaup drake is a handsome bird, with head, neck
and upper breast of a shining jet black; mantle white,
finely lned transversely with dark grey; a white
speculum, with a black posterior margin glossed with
green, on the dusky wing; rest of underparts white;
bill, legs, and feet bluish, the bill with a black ‘nail’
at the tip. Length 18 inches, wing 8} inches. The
female is dusky brown, has a white ring of feathers
round the base of the bill, dirty-white underparts, and
a dingy imitation on the mantle of the colours of
the corresponding part in the male. The Scaup is a
clumsy ‘cob-built’ duck, quite different in figure from
the elegant Pintail and Wigeon.

The nest is placed amongst low vegetation, or
amongst stones even, near water, and the eggs (six
to ten in number) are rather more than 23 inches long,
and of a dull drab in colour.

The food at sea consists of mollusca (especially
mussels; see ‘mussel-scalp, the latter being probably
connected with the names ‘scallop’ and ‘scaup’), and
some sea-plants (¢g. Zostera). In Iceland the food
consists of fresh-water mollusca (Limnwa peregra,
Pisidium, Succinea) and a certain amount of vegetable
matter. The rivers and lakes of Iceland (such as are

62 BIRDS OF ICELAND

not contaminated by glaciers) swarm with small
mollusca, and it is these which give the trout and char
their red flesh and fine condition.

+ Clangula glaucion (Linn.).
CoMMON GOLDENEYE.

Native name. ‘Husbnd (‘House-duck, from its habit
of nesting in holes in the turf walls of farm
buildings).

It was on June 23, 1885, when Mr. Thomas Carter
and I were riding amongst a number of small sheets
of water in the delta of the Heradsvotn (Skagafjéror)
that my eye fell on a pair of goldeneyes ina pool. I
was wanting to take an interest in goldeneyes, having
then never seen Barrow’s Goldeneye at large. They
allowed me to pass on horseback at about forty yards
distance. My instant thought was that they were not
Barrow’s Goldeneye at all, the drake having a circular,
and not crescent-shaped, white patch on the face. I
duly made a note of it that night and recorded it
(Zodlogist, 1886, p. 1), and also requested my friend
Stephensson to look out for the bird and procure me
specimens, if possible. In the following winter he
sent me two drakes—one quite a young bird, witha
sooty head, the other adult—of C. glaucion. I never
saw it at Myvatn, and the duck-farmers there failed
to recognise a sketch of it, nor did any of the autho-
rities in Iceland appear to meet with it afterwards.
Grondal merely mentions in Skyrsla (p. 50) my record,

BIRDS OF ICELAND 63

and when I was at Reykjavik in 1900 told me that he
had not met with the bird. I pointed out that there
was an adult male stuffed in the museum never-
theless.

It is probably, therefore, a rare species in Iceland,
and may be a summer visitor only, though staying till
late. It will, doubtless, be found to occur in almost
all parts of the country sporadically. Odlogists must
not, therefore, take for granted any longer that golden-
eyes eggs from Iceland are certain to be those of
C’. islandica.

The two species are very much alike, and I refer the
reader to the more detailed description of Barrow’s
Goldeneye, merely mentioning here the differences
between them. C. glaucion is a size smaller; the
drake’s head is glossed with green, not purple; and it
has a nearly circular, not half-moon-shaped, white
patch on the cheek. The females resemble one
another very closely, but there is the same difference
in size; the crown of C. glaucion @ is flatter, and less
arched, than of C. islandica, and the latter has the
greater wing-coverts tipped with black, though whether
this difference always holds good I am unable to say.
For exact measurements, see under C. islandica. Pro-
bably one of the best criteria would be the respective
weights; I regret that I have omitted to collect in-
formation on this point. I shall, however, be much
indebted to any readers who will be kind enough to
note down the exact weights of adults of both species,
and furnish me with them. I should prefer the details

64 BIRDS OF ICELAND

concerning the present species to come from elsewhere
than Iceland, as two so nearly allied species might
possibly hybridise.

+ Clangula islandica
(Gmelin, Syst: Vat. 1, 25 p. 54 ne ted gee,
BARROWS GOLDENEYE.

Native name: ‘Husdnd’ (partim).

A resident, common in the north, and not uncommon
anywhere, though it does not go to the high fells in
the interior to breed. It nests in the turf walls of
farm outbuildings, and thence gets its Icelandic name
of ‘House-duck ’—also in holes in bank sides, and
under stones. The down in the nest is of a dirty-
white colour; by this and the large green-blue eggs,
the nests of the two Goldeneyes may at a glance be
distinguished from any other Icelandic duck—but not
from one another! The nest consists of a little grass
and vegetable odds and ends. The eggs are light-green
blue, as already mentioned, and 25 inches long (taken
by myself from a nest on which I captured and care-
fully examined the female, and am certain of the
species). Eges in my collection of the Common
Goldeneye from Norway are of exactly the same
colour and size.

The drake of Barrow’s Goldeneye has the head and
neck black with a purplsh gloss (not green), a
crescentic (not round) white spot on the cheek; lower
neck, scapulars, alar speculum and underparts white ;

BIRDS OF ICELAND 65

back and rest of wing black. In ‘eclipse plumage’ it
may be distinguished from the female by its retaining
traces of the white cheek-patch. The female has a
reddish-brown head, followed by a white collar and a
grey-brown neck and shoulders; white alar speculum,
divided into three by black bars; back grey-brown, rest
of underparts white.

The food consists of mollusca, small crustacea, and
a certain proportion of vegetable matter.

Barrow’s Goldeneye does not gain its English (or
rather American) name from the John Barrow who
visited Iceland in a yacht in 1834, and subsequently
wrote a fairly readable book of travels—but from
Barrow of North-west Passage fame (the Barrow of
‘Barrow’s Straits’ and ‘Point Barrow’). Barrow’s
Goldeneye is a pretty common bird in Northern and
Arctic America, but is only found in Iceland in the
Old World, though it has been known to stray to other
parts of Europe.

MEASUREMENTS.

Length. Wing. Tail. Culmen. Tarsus.
Clangula islandica, @ 20in. 94 4% J3(nearly) 14 (full)
C. glaucion, g 18 ,, 9(nearly) 4 14(full) 14 (bare)
C. islandica, © 18 ,, 8} to 8? 14 (bare)

~I

CO. glaucion, ° Lyte 3 14 (full)

The culmen is the length of the bill, measured along
its upper surface from where the feathers of the fore-
head end, to the tip.

The tarsus, or, more correctly, tarso-metatarsus, is
the long joint above the foot; the apparent ‘knee’

E

66 BIRDS OF ICELAND

at its top (which bends the wrong way for a knee)
corresponds anatomically to the human ankle. The
tarsus is formed by a fusing together of what are in
man the second, third, and fourth metatarsal bones.

+ Harelda glacialis (Linn.).
LONG-TAILED DUCK.

Native names : ‘ Havella’ (pron. ‘ Howedtla’), ‘ Fovella’
(variant ‘ fdella’). The meaning of these names is
obscure, and they are probably onomatopoetic—
attempts to describe the bird’s note.

A resident and common everywhere, breeding on
mountain lakes and tarns and by lowland rivers,
frequenting the sea all round the coasts in winter.
Readers are warned against shooting it for dinner,
unless they can get nothing else.

The nest is placed amongst dwarf bushes or sedge
on an islet, or amongst the vegetation clothing the
shores of a fresh-water lake, tarn, or river. It is made
of a little grass with dead willow leaves, and is sub-
sequently lined thickly with a very soft down, almost
equal to that of the Eider. The eggs, six to nine in
number, are small for the size of the bird, but vary con-
siderably, even in the same clutch, and measure from
a shade under 2 inches in length to nearly 24 inches.
Their colour varies also from greenish drab to pure drab.

The drake is easy to distinguish from any other bird,
although no other duck varies so much in plumage.
The summer and winter dresses are quite different, and

BIRDS OF ICELAND 67

there are all manner of intermediate stages, dependent
on age and season. But the long central tail-feathers
which are from 7 to 9 inches long, and which gain for
this bird, on the Northumberland coast, the name of
‘Sea Pheasant, are a distinguishing mark which is
seen at a glance. In winter the drake has a white
head, with forehead and cheeks pale grey, and a brown
streak on each side of the neck; the back and shoulders
and most of the wing are nearly black, the rest of the
bird white except the brown secondaries. In summer
the side of the head becomes white, the rest of the
head and neck turning brown like the back, while the
feathers of the back and scapulars show conspicuous
chestnut edges. I do not know which of the plumages
is handsomest. The female is of a dusky-erey brown
all over, with a whitish streak behind the eye, and
dusky-white underparts, and no lengthening of the
central tail-feathers. The drake is 22 to 25 inches
long, including the tail (tail 34 inches without the long
feathers), wing 9 inches. The female about 16 inches
altogether.

The food when on the sea (that is, during the greater
part of the year) consists of marine mollusca, often
obtained at a very considerable depth, with crustacea.
On fresh water the mollusca, so abundant in most
lakes in Iceland, as well as in the rivers which do not
originate in glaciers, form their principal food, mixed
with aquatic larvee, etc., and generally some vegetable
matter,

The clear bugle-call of the drake, which is uttered

68 BIRDS OF ICELAND

all night through in the Iceland summer, redeems
many a wild mountain tarn in that country from what
would otherwise be a desolate and oppressive silence.

-Cosmonetta histrionica (Linn.).
HARLEQUIN DUCK.

Native names: ‘Straum6nd’ (Stream-duck), ‘ Brim-

dufa’ (‘ Wave-dove’ !), ‘ Briménd.’

Resident, moving southwards in some measure in
winter, occurring not uncommonly on all but the still
rivers, and those which, flowing from glaciers, are
without insect life. They breed under bushes or thick
sedge, or in holes in river banks, and seldom more than
twenty yards (rarely as much) from the water's edge.
The nest is hard to find, being more skilfully concealed
than that of any duck with which I am acquainted.
There is not much nest, usually, and the eggs, which
vary from a pale to a warm cream colour, are from five
to eight in number, and a shade under 2} inches in
length.

The plumage of the drake is rather hard to describe
briefly. The head is black, the upper parts a dark
lead grey, the underparts grey-brown, the flanks
chestnut; and the head, neck, and upper breast are
conspicuously barred, obliquely and transversely, with
white stripes, bordered with black and sometimes with
chestnut as well. Length 17 inches, wing 8 inches.
The female is dusky brown, with dirty-white under-
parts and a patch of the same colour in front and

BIRDS OF ICELAND 69

below the eye, and another behind it on the ear-coverts.
She closely resembles the female Longtail, and most
supposed occurrences in Britain of the Harlequin have
turned out, on examination, to have been those of the
Longtail. The bird gets its English name from the
bizarre but very handsome plumage of the drake. It
is an excellent bird for the table, surpassing in this
respect any duck with which I am acquainted, and I
regret to say that it is shot a good deal in the close
season by Icelanders. Like Barrow’s Goldeneye it is
more a bird of the New than of the Old World, and is
found in the latter only in Iceland and north-eastern
Asia.

Mr. Howard Saunders (Manual of British Birds,
p. 446) states, on the authority of Mr. L. Belding, that
the food of the Harlequin consists in summer of ‘ insects,
which is delightfully vague, more especially as a glance
at the Zoologist (1886, p. 153) would have gained in-
formation a trifle more precise. As the bird is so
unlike other ducks in its habits and habitat, it will be
worth while to specify that it haunts not only rapid
rivers, but the rapidest parts of them, and when feeding
is to be seen on the shingle beds, turning over the pebbles
on the water’s edge, in just such places as an angler
would hunt for May-fly and stone-fly ‘creepers.’ And
for the same reason, the swallowed food at this season
is found to consist almost exclusively of larve of
Ephemere and Phryganide, especially the former.
When disturbed, Harlequins seldom take wing, except
at very close quarters, but paddle down-stream through

70 BIRDS OF ICELAND

the roughest and most broken water, diving repeatedly,
and taking a waterfall (even a considerable one) with-
out hesitation. They are easy enough to kill on the
wing, but on the water need a stiff dose of No. 4 shot,
else they dive, die under water, and are probably lost.

I should add that the Harlequin is a very late
breeder—three weeks, or so, later than the gene-
rality of ducks in Iceland—and no one need expect to
find eggs much before July. The only one I recollect
before that, I found lying in a shallow pool by a river-
side at the bottom of the water—it having evidently
been produced unexpectedly (in a very early spring)
before there was a nest ready for it.

- Somateria mollissima (Linn.). Erprer Duck.

Native names: ‘ ASur, ‘ Adar-fugl, also ‘ edar-bliki’
(4), ‘ cedarkolla’ (g).

Resident in large. numbers; especially abundant
round the coast, strictly preserved by law, and in
consequence very tame. In Akureyri, for instance,
the old ducks with their ducklings feed along the edge
of the fjord quite close to the houses and road, and take
no more notice of the passers-by than domestic ducks
would do—which is very pretty. In winter they pack
in immense flocks. The eider down is, of course, the
property of the owner of the land, and every induce-
ment and protection is given to the birds, as the down
is a valuable article of trade. It is universally used
in Iceland for ‘duvets ’—no other word seems to apply,

BIRDS OF ICELAND 71

for they are not thin and quilted, like those we use
in England, but thick and almost spherical. It requires
some practice to use them effectively, or even grace-
fully. My companions have occasionally, when I was
getting up for a stroll before breakfast, suggested the
idea of Atlas of old days, or of a person trying to
balance a huge football on his chest, and there were
invariably uncovered limbs projecting here and there.
I have always preferred my own rug.

The Eider is a big and clumsy-built duck; the male
black and white, with a pale green nape; the female a
uniform dusky brown with darker bars. But the species
may be instantly recognised (from all but the King
Eider) by its large size, and the peculiar strip of short
feathers which runs down the bill from the forehead
almost to the nostrils. Length 25 inches, wing
12 inches.

The nest is made of twigs, leaves, or grass, etc.,
inland, and is placed amongst vegetation; near the sea
it is largely made of seaweed, and is often placed
amongst rocks and stones. The eggs are large (three
inches long), five or six in number, and vary in colour
from a dull dingy green to a rather bright green.

The birds feed on shellfish and other marine pro-
ducts. What they live upon up country I have never
been able to ascertain, as their persons are sacred—
like a fox’s at home. The birds breed on islets on, or
near, the sea—occasionally on the mainland; but some
few go a considerable distance up rivers and breed on
suitable islands.

72 BIRDS OF ICELAND

In a book entitled the Annals of Wiichester College,
by T. F. Kirby, the following passage occurs: ‘In 1553
the Society began to keep swans, and continued to do
so for many years, until in fact the turkey superseded
the swan at table.... By 1556 the stock was increased
to “thirteen white olde swannes, and four of the
present yeare,” and a few years later there were thirty-
three, “some white some ydyr,” 2. cygnets. And a
footnote explains ‘ydyr, which has an unmistakably
Celtic appearance, to mean ‘elder, or downy.’ From
this it might be inferred that the Eider Duck gains its
name from a Welsh word meaning ‘downy.’ I believe
it is the other way on; and, as Professor Skeat indicates,
‘eider’ is Old Norse (z.e. Icelandic) and not Celtic at ail.
I may add that the Eider Duck is called ‘ A6r’ in the
Younger, or Prose, Edda, which was finally completed
not later than A.D. 1250, though much was written
considerably before that date.

In the British Museum Catalogue, vol. xxvii,
p. 489, there is an ‘ Anas borealis (Gm.)’ mentioned as
a ‘doubtful species’ which has ‘not yet been identified.’
Gmelin appears to have fixed upon a bird called by
Pennant (Arctic Zool., u. p. 572) the ‘Gulaund Duck,’
and given it this Latin name in Syst. Nat. Count
Salvadori conjectures that the bird indicated is the
Hider. This is clearly wrong; the Gulénd is a com-
mon everyday name in Iceland for the Goosander,
q.v. p. 75.

BIRDS OF ICELAND 73

+ Somateria spectabilis (Linn.).
Kine Duck, or Kine EIper.

Native name: ‘ Adar-kéneur, ‘ Blikakoneur,’
oD d ro)

An occasional visitor from more northerly climes.
Faber (Prodromus, pp. 67-68) states, amongst other
instances of its occurrence, that the King Eider bred
on Videy, a small island near Reykjavik where Common
Eiders are numerous, in 1819 and 1820. ‘There is no
absolute impossibility that this may have been the
case, but it is at least unlikely. Male King Eiders,
in not quite adult dress, are not uncommonly to be
found during the summer in the company of male
Common Eiders some distance south of their breeding
grounds; as I have myself seen in Novaia Zemlya,
where the Common Eiders were breeding, and the
King Eiders were not. This is the explanation of
the appearance of King Eiders in Iceland in summer,
I feel sure; they are individuals, not quite fully adult,
who do not feel impelled to go farther north to breed,
but stay where they have found comfortable quarters.
The Icelanders maintain, however, that the presence
of the King Eider drake in the breeding season is a
most fortunate circumstance for them, as his majesty
largely increases the fertility of the Common Eider ducks.
Ihave myself heard this gravely asserted; and as long as
this myth survives, ornithologists will do well to spare,
at the same time, any King Duck they come across,
and also the feelings of the duck-farmers of those parts.

74 BIRDS OF ICELAND

The King Eider drake can be recognised a long way
off by his ‘crown, a fleshy tubercle at the base of the
upper mandible, which is, ike the bill, orange coloured.
This species 1s rather smaller than the Common Eider,
but otherwise much like it; it is 24 inches long, and
has a wing of 114 inches. The females, however, are
very difficult to distinguish from females of S. mol-
lissima, but they are rather smaller (length 22 inches,
wing 104 inches) and more of a rusty red-brown
in colour, than of an umber brown lke the other
species.

+ Cdemia nigra (Linn.). Common Scorer.

Native name: ‘Hrafnsond’ (=‘ Raven-duck,’ and pro-
nounced ‘Hrabsund’). Sometimes erroneously
called ‘Dukénd, a name which belongs to the
Scaup.

A summer visitor, not uncommon in the north,
breeding in some numbers on Myvatn and other
northern lakes, but seldom seen in the extreme south.
I have seen it on lakes on the Arnarvatnsheidi, but
very rarely, and that would seem to be its southern
breeding-limit. Easily recognised by its colour, which
is in the male a uniform black, in the female a dark
sooty brown, a little paler underneath. The drake has
a patch of orange yellow on the top of the bill, which
is otherwise black; his length is 20 inches, wing 94
inches.

The nest is placed amongst willow bushes and other

BIRDS OF ICELAND 75

vegetation on an island in a fresh-water lake, less
commonly on the mainland, and is made of loose
vegetable matter, with a lining of dusky down added
later; the eggs (five to eight in number) are of a
creamy white and about 24 inches long.

The Common Scoter feeds on mollusca chiefly, and
is quite unfit to eat.

The Velvet Scoter (@ fusca) so common on _hill-
tarns in Norway, has never yet been recognised in
Iceland, but should be looked out for as not unlikely
to occur—round the coasts, at all events. It has a
white patch on the wing, and the brown-grey female
a white spot behind the eye.

+Mergus merganser (Linn.). GoosanDER.

Native names: ‘Stora toppond, ‘gulénd’; the latter
seems to mean ‘yellow duck, which does not
seem specially applicable ; the first name means
‘larger top-knotted duck.’

Resident and pretty common, and is, with the
following, the only species of duck which is not pro-
tected by law in the close season. They are very
destructive to fry on salmon and trout rivers, and can
easily dispose of a six-inch trout. The two offending
species are characterised by their long slender bills,
hooked at the tips and serrated along the inner
margins, whence their English name of ‘saw-bills.’

The nest of this species is placed in a hole in a
bank, or under a stone; the cream-coloured eggs are

76 BIRDS OF ICELAND

six to ten in number and nearly 2# inches long, and are
surrounded, during incubation, with a dirty-grey down.

The drake Goosander is a very handsome bird, with
his snow-white breast, black crested head and upper
neck, and black-and-white wings. Length 26 inches,
wing 114 inches. The female has the head and neck
rusty red, the upper parts grey, with a white speculum
on the wing, underparts white. Length 234 inches,
wing 104 inches.

I am afraid that this bird deserves shooting when
found on a salmon or trout water, or its tributaries ;
afterwards they form a suitable object by means of
which any one can acquire a reputation for generosity
inexpensively. At all events, I should prefer not to
dine off a Goosander myself; and I should hesitate to
give one to any person I had a regard for.

~ Mergus serrator, Linn. MERGANSER.

Native name: ‘ Litla toppond.’

Resident and common—too common; as it, like the
Goosander, is terribly destructive to fresh-water fish.

The nest of the Merganser is usually well concealed
amongst vegetation, in a hole in the ground, or amongst
lava blocks, and the eggs, six to nine in number, are
packed during incubation in a dirty-white down.
Their colour is drab, often, but not always, with a
greenish tinge when fresh.

The description of the Goosander drake will serve for
a general description of this bird; but the Merganser

BIRDS OF ICELAND ce

has a dusky-spotted bar across the chest, and near the
shoulder a patch of very conspicuous white feathers
with black borders. It is much smaller, however,
being only 22 inches long, with a wing of 10 inches.
The female is also a small copy of the female Goosander,
but is more rusty red, and less grey, on the upper
parts. Length 21 inches, wing 94 inches.

The food consists of fish, and fish only

young trout
and salmon for choice; and though its numbers ought
to be kept in check for that reason (and it is, like
the Goosander, exempted from legal protection), it is
absolutely worthless for table purposes.

~ Lagopus rupestris (Gmelin).
Rock PTARMIGAN.

Native names: ‘ Ryupa,’ ‘ Rjyip-karri’ (4), old form
‘Rjupkeri.’

Resident, frequenting hillsides at all altitudes like
our Red Grouse, but, unlike it, found usually in birch
woods and in the wildest and raggedest lava-tracts.
To these latter they are very partial, retiring to them
after feeding, and the old cocks sit on boulders and
lava pinnacles (to keep a look-out, perhaps), as Black-
cocks do on stone walls at home. Hence, I suppose,
the name rupestris. In severe weather, hunger drives
them down to the coast.

The nest is loosely made, of a few twigs and stalks
of grass with odd feathers of the bird’s own, and is
often partially concealed under a willow bush, or

78 BIRDS OF ICELAND

branch of trailing birch, but is sometimes quite in
the open between two tussocks, The ravens get a good
many of the eggs of the Rock Ptarmigan (or used to,
when they were more abundant; but their numbers
have been much reduced by sheep-farmers). The eggs
are exactly like those of the Red, or Willow Grouse,
that is to say, are spotted thickly with dark rich
brown upon a cream ground colour, and vary in
number from seven to twelve. The hen sits very
close indeed, and obviously trusts a good deal to her
colour to escape observation. I almost trod on a
sitting hen one day, and she sat as if she had been
cut out of wood.

The changes of plumage in this species are very
interesting, and the male’s dress is very unlike the
female’s. These variations have induced a variety of
writers upon Iceland to publish some very erroneous
theories—as that there are two, or even three, species
of Grouse or Ptarmigan in Iceland; for in their per-
plexity they have imagined the existence of the
European Ptarmigan (Z. mutus) and the Willow Grouse
(Z. albus) in Iceland, supplementing the lst with
sundry hybrid intermediate forms besides. There is
only one gallinaceous bird found in Iceland, and that
is the Rock Ptarmigan (it is a true Ptarmigan and
grunts or croaks, instead of ‘becking, as the Red and
Willow Grouse do), and any differences in appearance
are caused by seasonal and sexual changes of plumage.
As the Rock Ptarmigan cannot be confused with any
other bird existing in Iceland, I do not think it

BIRDS OF ICELAND 78)

necessary to give a detailed description, In summer
and autumn its dark ‘grousy’ body and white wings
will distinguish it on the wing from anything else.
In winter, of course, it turns white. It is well figured
in Dresser’s Lirds of Hurope, and the curious autumn
dress (which has caused confusion with LZ. mutus) is
described and figured by Messrs. W. E. Clarke and
Backhouse in the /bis of October 1885.

As with grouse in Scotland, the Rock Ptarmigan in
Iceland have a way of increasing in-numbers during
successive seasons, up to a certain point, and then
suddenly becoming scarce. This has been explained
by the occasional cold late springs which occur every
now and then in Iceland; but I happened once to be
there in a year when the Ptarmigan had become scarce
suddenly (though the spring had not been a particularly
late or cold one), and from various dead birds I
examined, I came to the conclusion that the decima-
tion of the species was due to an epidemic similar to
our grouse disease. There was the same emaciation,
featherless legs and toes, and inflammation of the
viscera, with abundant entozoa.

+ Rallus aquaticus, Linn. Warer Ratt.

Native name: ‘Keldu-svin’ (Swamp-swine!). There
are also some antique names mentioned by
Groéndal, but not, as far as I know, now in use,
viz. ‘ Loekjakraka,’ ‘ JarSdsmuga,’ etc.

Resident, not very uncommon in the south-east, but

80 BIRDS OF ICELAND

decidedly scarce in the north. I have seen a good
many specimens of the bird. In the south-east it
breeds in some numbers, and Herra P. Nielsen of
Eyrarbakka (to whom I am indebted for a good deal
of information) found seventy nests in six years, the
number of eggs in each varying from seven to eleven.
It clearly lays two clutches of eggs in the season, as he
has found eggs as early as 29th May and as late as
10th September; but whether the second laying is in
consequence of loss of the first is a question, birds in
Iceland being rarely double-brooded.

The eggs are light buff in colour, and sparsely
spotted, the colour of the surface spots being deep
ruddy brown, and of the deep spots grey brown. The
nest is placed amongst coarse sedge or other vegetation
in wet places, and is made of sedge leaves coiled round.

-- Gallinula chloropus (Linn.). WaATERHEN.

Native name: ‘Vatnshena, which is merely a transla-
tion of the Danish ‘ Vandhone’=‘ Waterhen,’ and
‘Poule d'eau.’ Also called ‘ Sjohcena.’

A very rare straggler, which is only known to have
occurred twice in Iceland. The first was killed in the
Vestmann Islands on April 4, 1882, and the skin was .
preserved for Herra Gréndal. The second came under
my own observation. While staying for a few days at
Hnausir in Hunavatns Sysla, the farmer there brought
in a Waterhen’s skin, requesting us to let him know
what it was. It had been caught in a half-starved

BIRDS OF ICELAND 81

condition at the edge of one of the meres near the
house late in the previous autumn (of 1899). The
farmer tried to feed it, but without success, not
knowing the proper food, and on its death wisely
preserved the skin.

+ Fulica atra, Linn. Coor.

Natwe name: ‘ Blesdnd’ (ze. the duck with a white
‘blaze’ on its forehead).

An occasional wanderer from Europe, chiefly to the
south-west. Gréndal thinks that it has occurred more
frequently of late years. It seems to be generally met
with in late summer and autumn (the season of the
southward, not the northward, migration, by the way!).
The first record is Faber’s (Prodromus, page 63) of a
pair shot in the late autumn of 1819 near Reykjavik.
The Coot is rare in the north, but I have seen several
skins there at different times. It has never been
known to breed in Iceland. It seems hardly necessary
to give a description of so well known a bird ; its sooty-
erey plumage, large lobed feet, and white blaze on
the forehead will prevent the possibility of mistake.

figialitis hiaticula (Linn.).
RINGED PLOVER.
Natwe name: ‘Sand-loa.
A summer visitor, widely distributed and not un-
common, arriving at the end of April and staying till
i

82 BIRDS OF ICELAND

September. It breeds in bare gravelly places, mostly
near the coasts, but sometimes in the very interior.
We found a pair, obviously breeding, at the sandy
end of Rjettarvatn, a tarn on the Arnarvatnshei0di,
a wild interior plateau some two thousand feet above
the sea.

Its nest is placed in a bare gravelly place, and lined
with fine gravel; the four eggs are of a light sand
colour spotted with black, length about 14 inches.
They are difficult to see, being of exactly the same
colour as their surroundings.

The bird is light brown above, white below, with a
broad black bar across the chest ; a narrower one passing
from the base of the upper mandible below the eye,
where it is joined by another which forms a broad
black bar across the crown, and then passes through
the eye to the nape. Length 9 inches, wing nearly 6
inches. The black bars in the female are narrower
and browner. Young birds are much shaded with buff
and grey, and are decidedly smaller in size.

| Hgialitis curonica (Gmel.).
LESSER RINGED-PLOVER.

Native name: none.

Herra Grondal (Verzeichniss, p. 359) states that a
flock of the Little Ringed-Plover were seen on the
beach near Reykjavik on July 27, 1878, and adds that
the bird has been killed in company with . hiaticula.
In England, where it is extremely rare, the Lesser

BIRDS OF ICELAND 83

Ringed-Plover seems to occur singly. I do not know
if any authentic Icelandic specimens are in existence,
but there is a diminutive race of &. hiaticula which,
on the score of size, has often passed muster as
47. cwronica ; and the mention of the two in company
above rather points to this, especially as the true
Ai. curonica is more an inland and fresh-water bird
than one of the sea-coasts. Still, of course, it has to
reach the sea-coasts first, on migration. However, I
think that a little further evidence is desirable. The
Lesser Ringed-Plover is slender in build, only 64 inches
long, with a wing of 43 inches, and has the shaft of the
first primary only white, of the rest dusky. In
Ai. liaticula there are patches of white on the shafts
of all the primaries. ]

Charadrius pluvialis, Linn.
GOLDEN PLOVER.

Native names: ‘Loa, ‘ Lo,’ ‘ Heidloa, ‘ Heilda,’ ‘ Heil,’

A summer visitor in great numbers, breeding or
fells and hills ‘from the centre all down to the sea’;
flocking in August, and then beginning to work down
towards the sea-coast, leaving the country during
September or the first week of October. One of the
commonest birds in Iceland, and met with everywhere
—its plaintive whistle, musical as it is, becoming
wearisome in time from the way in which the birds
dog you and incessantly repeat it. I found a nestling
only a few days old, near ‘Asbyrgi, on August 8

84 BIRDS OF ICELAND

1894; the Golden Plover had already commenced to
flock previous to their departure for winter quarters,
and I believe the little one had even then been
deserted by its parents.

The nest is placed on a grassy or lichen-clad spot in
an open situation; it is a mere cup-shaped hollow,
with a few vegetable scraps (probably all grown on
the spot), in the bottom. The four eggs are of a
ground colour ranging from a warm, ruddy buff,
through pale stone colour to almost olive, and are
boldly spotted and blotched with purplish erey and
deep brown-black. Length about 2 inches.

The bird it is surely unnecessary to describe in
detail! I may remark that in summer it wears a
black gorget, stretching from the bill to the thighs
(of a pure black such as no breeding Golden Plover
in Britain wears—so pick up a specimen in Iceland);
this is moulted into dusky white in the autumn, and
the bird is then in the dress most familar to English-
men. The head, back, and wings are at all seasons
black, mottled with spots of golden and creamy white.
Axillaries white. Length about 11 inches (young birds
less), wing 7? inches. The food consists of insects,
larvee, mollusca; by the sea in winter of crustacea,
worms, and mollusca.

BIRDS OF ICELAND 85

Squatarola helvetica (Linn.).
GREY PLOVER.

Native name: none.

A rare strageler in late autumn. Two specimens
are in the Museum at Reykjavik—one, I believe, shot
by Herra P. Nielsen at Eyrarbakki on September 25,
1892, the other said to have been obtained near Reyk-
javik. One or two more have occurred, I believe, as
casual strays. This bird bears a general resemblance
to the last (this resemblance is greatest amongst the
young birds of both species), but may be easily dis-
tinguished on the wing, even at some distance, by the
black axillaries, which show very conspicuously in
flight (those of the Golden Plover are white). The
adult Grey Plover has no golden spots on head, back,
or shoulders; but the young birds are almost as golden-
spotted as those of the other species. In any state
of plumage the present species may be distinguished, in
the hand, by its longer bill, and by the fact that it has
a hind toe, the Golden Plover having none. Leneth
12 inches (young birds rather less), wing 8 inches.

Vanellus vulgaris, Bechst. Lapwina.

Native name: ‘ Vepja’ (the Danish ‘ Vibe, and Norse
‘Vipa’); also ‘Isakraka’ (‘ Ice-crow, the point of
which is not obvious).

A rare straggler, chiefly to the south-west, and
mostly in the autumn. As with the Coot, Gréndal

86 BIRDS OF ICELAND

thinks that its appearances of late years have increased
in frequency. It has never been reported as breeding
in Iceland.

It seems unnecessary to describe so familiar a bird
to Englishmen, but it may be well just to state that
its brown back with green gloss; conspicuous black
occipital crest, and bar across the chest (extending
over the throat and neck in summer dress); white
underparts; rounded dark wings and flapping flight,
ought to distinguish it sufficiently. Length about 12
inches, wing 9 inches.

Strepsilas interpres (Linn.). TURNSTONE. |

Native name: ‘Tildra.’

A spring and autumn migrant in some numbers, a
small proportion of the visitors remaining to breed.
But it is decidedly of uncommon occurrence as a
breeding bird, and nests on the fells, as in Novaia
Zemlya, and not on the coast near high-water mark,
as 1s sometimes the case in Norway. Faber considered
it to be a commoner bird in the south and west than
in the north, and so it may be as a migrant; but asa
breeding bird I believe the reverse to be the case, and
my eggs are all from the north. I have no idea what
Herra Grondal meant by describing this (Verzeichn.
360) as ‘probably a resident species’; and Howard
Saunders adopts this, defining the bird in Iceland as
‘sedentary.’ If there is a migrating species it is the
Turnstone, breeding in Greenland and wintering in

BIRDS OF ICELAND 87

South Africa! Gréndal in his more recent writings
(Skyrsla, p. 42) retracts this statement, and calls the
bird a ‘ farfugl,’ z.e. migrant.

Turnstones are very solitary birds in their breeding
quarters (almost like the Dotterel, Hudromias morinellus,
in this respect), and may be easily missed in the hun-
dreds of thousands of acres of suitable ground, unless
one chances to walk near the nest; then the parents are
very vociferous indeed. In fact, all that is generally
seen of breeding Turnstones is comprised in a sight of
the old birds, in early autumn, leading their young ones
down a river from the fells to the coast by easy stages.

The nest is a mere depression in the moss or lichen
on a hill-top; it has a few bits of grass and scraps of
moss or lichen for lining, in which are laid four pyri-
form eggs, greenish grey buff in ground colour, rather
boldly spotted and blotched with blue-grey and black.
Leneth about 14 inches.

The old birds at that season are white below and on
the back, and chestnut mottled with black above, while
the white head and breast are streaked and variegated
with a number of black bars and patches. Fora fuller
description I may refer the reader to Howard Saunders’
Manual, or to my own in Lritish Birds, their Nests and
Eggs, where I have pretty fully described the changes
of plumage in all this class of birds. The length of
the adult is 9 inches, wing about 6 inches. The food
inland consists of small beetles, flies, and anything in
the insect way; on the shore, of small crustacea and
other little living things.

88 BIRDS OF ICELAND

Hematopus ostralegus, Linn.
OvysTER-CATCHER.

Native name: ‘'Tjaldur.’

Icelanders used to believe that this bird was the
female of the Turnstone (the two have, of course, a
sort of superficial resemblance in colouring), and the
two vernacular names seem to be closely connected.

Not uncommon on the southern coasts, where it 1s
to be found all the year through; but in the north in
summer only, and rarely. I have never seen much of
it inland in the breeding season (to nothing lke the
same extent as it may be met with in some parts
of Perthshire, for instance), but odd pairs do occur,
though not at any great distance from the coast. It
should never be shot but by any one who wants a
specimen for preservation, as it is perfectly harmless,
as well as worthless for the table.

The nest is to be looked for on shingle-beds near the
sea just above high-water mark, or on the rock ledges
or the grassy summits of little islets—rarely on shingly
or gravelly places at any distance from salt water. It
consists of a mere hollow, sometimes lined with the
native gravel only, sometimes with a httle seaweed or
grass. The eggs, which are probably three only in the
generality of cases in Iceland, though as often four in
England, are of a light clay buff in ground colour,
spotted and streaked (sometimes boldly blotched) with
light grey-brown and black; length 24 inches.

(oe)

BIRDS OF ICELAND 9

The bird is black above and white below, with a
white patch on the wing and a large one covering most
of the back. Legs and feet pink (no hind toe), bill
orange. Length 16 inches, wing 94 inches. Sexes
alike. The young in first autumn are mottled a good
deal with rusty and white.

The ‘Sea Pie, as it should rather be called (for even
where they exist, it does not get an oyster ‘once ina
blue moon,’ nor do oysters want very much ‘ catching’)
—the Sea Pie feeds on any small marine creatures,
and its wedge-shaped bill enables it to deal with such
as wear armour or cling to rocks; limpets, small crabs,
mussels, annelids, sandhoppers, and other crustacea
provide it with a varied bill of fare.

Phalaropus fulicarius (Linn.).
GREY PHALAROPE.

Native names: ‘porshani’ (‘Thor’s hen’). Professor
Newton adds ‘ FlatnefjaSur-sundhani’ and ‘ Raud-
brystingur’ (partim)—z.e. ‘flat-billed Sundhani’
(q.v.) and ‘red-breasted one,’ so they may be more
descriptive than appellative; nor does Grondal
include them in his Jslaéndische Vogelnamen.

A rare and local summer visitor, most abundant at
passage times, on its way to Greenland and Spitzbergen
no doubt, but some remain to breed. They still nest
in small and decreasing numbers in the neighbourhood
which Faber mentions, and I know of at least four
other breeding places in widely distant parts of the

90 BIRDS OF ICELAND

island, from one of which I have eggs and a skin of an
adult bird in breeding plumage. Most of these breed-
ing-places are either on the margin of a fresh-water
lake, or on an islet in a fjord, and, with one ex-
ception, are all near enough to the sea to allow the
birds to feed on the sea-shore, which they regularly do.

The nest of the Grey Phalarope is placed in or under
a tuft of sedge or grass near the water's edge, and is
usually well concealed; the material is grass, and the
nest is unusually neatly finished for a Wader. The
eggs are four in number, light greenish buff in colour,
spotted and blotched with dark brown, and in length
30:5 60 07a mim. 1.¢. 1p mchies:

The Grey Phalarope is blackish above, with a white
patch on the side of the head and a white bar on the
wing, the feathers of the shoulder and scapulars
broadly bordered with buff, underparts from the chin
dull chestnut. The winter plumage is entirely differ-
ent, being chiefly light grey and black. Length about
8 inches, wing 54 inches. Males rather duller in
colour and smaller. I may remark that none of the
examples that I have seen from Iceland are in ab-
solutely perfect breeding dress, like those from farther
north (¢.g. a skin I have from Point Barrow in Alaska,
or one Mr. Trevor-Battye got in Spitzbergen and lent
to me some time back). Their state of plumage may
be likened to that of breeding Golden Plovers in
England as compared to that of those shot from the
nest in Iceland. All migrant species seem to put on
the richest nuptial dress in the northernmost part of

eee

BIRDS OF ICELAND 91

their breeding range, and no doubt many evanescent
sub-species have been founded on this fact.

The food of the Grey Phalarope consists of small
crustacea and other marine creatures, and though the
bird seems by choice to haunt fresh water as a general
rule, it undoubtedly prefers to be within reach of the
sea for feeding purposes, and likes to pick on ground
covered with seaweed.

The Phalaropes can be recognised at a glance by
their feet, which are webbed in lobes like a Coot’s
(whence ‘ Phalarope’ and ‘fulicarius’), not lke a
Duck’s foot.

The eggs of the two species are so closely alike, and
egos are collected in Iceland in very many cases by
persons so completely untrained in verifying them by
careful observation of the parent birds, that many of the
eggs sent to England purporting to be of this species
are doubtfully genuine. But the Grey Phalarope is a
vanishing species in Iceland, owing to the value
attached to the eggs, and, unless further protected by
a new ‘Wild Bird’s Protection Act,’ must inevitably
become extinct there as a breeding species. I would
appeal, therefore, strongly to the better feelings of my
countrymen, and beg them to be content with eggs of
this species from Greenland or Spitzbergen or else-
where. They can readily be supplied through
American and German (vid English) dealers. I dare-
say not more than twenty to thirty pairs breed in
Iceland now.

92 BIRDS OF ICELAND

Phalaropus hyperboreus (Linn.).
RED-NECKED PHALAROPE.

Native names: ‘Sundhani’ (‘Swimming fowl’), ‘ ’Odins-
hani’ (Odin’s fowl); and Grdndal adds some
ponderous and deservedly antiquated ones, viz.
‘landspingisskrifari, ‘torfgrafar-alpt,’ ete.

A summer visitor, arriving in May and remaining
till August, or the beginning of September. Very
common everywhere, and charmingly tame and con-
fiding in its ways.

The nest is placed near water (fresh water, usually),
in a tuft of rushes or sedge, and is usually well hidden,
which seems unnecessary, because the bird is invari-
ably ready to show you where it is. Four eggs of the
usual pyriform Wader shape are laid, of a greenish
buff, thickly spotted and blotched with black, and
very much like those of the last species, from which
they differ in being a shade smaller, rather darker in
eround colour, and usually more thickly, but less
boldly, spotted. Length about ie inches, or rather
less.

The plumage of this bird in summer is sooty grey
above with buff streaks on the shoulders; white throat
and sides of face, succeeded by a chestnut collar ;-breast
sooty grey, rest of underparts white. In winter the
plumage is totally different, but (somewhat remarkably,
considering how abundant it is in Iceland) it is hardly
ever seen in this dress in Britain, though the rarer

BIRDS OF ICELAND 93

Grey Phalarope is comparatively common. Feet lobed
—like those of the last species.

When calling this bird common everywhere, I
perhaps ought to qualify it by saying that at very
high elevations (like the Arnarvatusheidi and other
elevated plateaux), it is not abundant, though it cannot
either be called rare. It is, unlike the last species, a
fresh-water feeder by choice; it prefers tarns and lakes
to rivers, and its chief food in the breeding season
seems to be (I have watched it feeding many and many
a time, sometimes not two yards away from me) that
particularly offensive small grey-black fly, which is
found by all river-, and especially lake-sides in Iceland
in the summer, and which, particularly at times and
in certain places, is capable of making life almost un-
bearable to human beings and their ponies. ‘ Expertus
loquor. The MRed-necked Phalarope catches these
noxious little pests on the wing (making pretty little
darts when so doing), picks them off the rushes, and also
feeds on the aquatic larvee; the insect is to be found in
the bird’s cesophagus and gizzard in both stages, and
forms, at that time, its principal food. It also eats
any small living aquatic creatures, and I have found
small mollusca (tiny ZLimncas) mixed with the eaten
food. The Red-necked Phalarope swims well and
buoyantly, and looks on the water like a diminutive

duck.

94 BIRDS OF ICELAND

Gallinago ceelestis (Frenzel).
CoMMON SNIPE.

Native names: ‘Hrossa-gaukr’ (=‘ horse-cuckoo, from
the neighing note which we call ‘drumming’ or
‘bleating ’—an obviously poetical name, and prob-
ably imported, considering that the ‘gaukr,’ 2.
cuckoo, or ‘gowk,’ is not found in Iceland; this
name occurs in the Younger Edda of the thirteenth
century). Also ‘Myri-snipa’ (mire-snipe), cor-
rupted into ‘myri-spita’ and ‘myri-skitr, which
are meaningless.

A summer visitor, universally distributed in localities
suited to its requirements, but nowhere, as far as I
have seen, abundant. JI never remember to have shot
more than three or four in a day in autumn, but I
ought to add that I have never once shot in Iceland to
‘make a bag, but only for the personal requirements
of the party, and of the neighbours who have kindly
allowed me to shoot over their ground. English
sportsmen, I am sorry to say, who shoot for the bag,
are neither respected nor liked in Iceland. I quote
verbatim from a letter in my possession:—‘ He had had
English sportsmen, who did not leave a very good
name behind them, as their only object seemed to be
to slaughter as many birds as they could, of any kind,
eatable or useless, for the mere sake of killing.’ Many
British visitors, I am sorry to have to say, obviously care
little indeed for the good name of their own country.

BIRDS OF ICELAND 95

I have seen a number of Snipes’ nests in Iceland.
Usually, as elsewhere, they are well concealed in a
grassy tussock on a bog, but I have found them in
dry, open, sunny spots in thick birch scrub, and
entirely unconcealed by a single grass-blade. The
nest is made of fine dry grass, and the four eggs are
olive brown in tint, spotted and blotched with dark
brown. Length, a shade over 14 inches.

Snipe are often very tame in Iceland. I remember
being very much charmed with a pair at ‘As (near ‘As-
byrgi, that wonderful double rift in the north-east).
I was making my morning toilet by a small waterfall
near the farm, and just across the stream, on a small
mud-bank not twenty yards from me, were a pair of
snipe, who took no notice of me whatever, but were
diligently probing, almost up to their eyes, for their
breakfast in the mud. I watched them for some time,
and the eager little wriggle of their heads, when their
delicately sensitive bill-tips encountered the faint
movement of some wee living thing down in the mud,
was most interesting and instructive. The thing when
extracted was too small, and too quickly disposed of,
for me to see what it was.

The Great Snipe (G. major, Gm.) has never yet
been obtained in Iceland, though certain guide-books
mention it as not uncommon. I am not aware that
they have the least foundation for the statement.

96 BIRDS OF ICELAND

Tringa alpina, Linn. DUNLIN.

LAgrey te =)

Native names: ‘Loupraell’ (‘ Loa’s,’ ze. Golden Plover’s
‘thrall,’ cf. ‘Plover’s page’). In pingeyrar Sysla
there is another name for this bird, which Herra
Gréndal spells ‘Heidarlaepa’ in Skyrsla and
‘Heidarloepa’ in Lslindische Vogelnamen. It means
‘Heath-trotter.’

A summer visitor, common in marshy places and by
lakes and rivers, except in the barren interior. We
only saw two pairs, as far as I recollect, on the
Arnarvatnsheidi in 1900. The nest is usually well
concealed in a grass tussock in a marsh, and is lined
with a little grass, and the four eggs are light greenish
drab, spotted and blotched with dark umber brown.
Length, 1,2, inches. As is the case with most of the
Limicole (Waders) both sexes incubate.

The Dunlin in breeding dress is dark above, with
the feathers margined with buff and chestnut; light
below, and wears a conspicuous black patch on the
chest, unlike any other small Wader. Length about
8 inches, wing 44 inches.

But there is a small race of Dunlin, which breeds in
Iceland and which Brehm (Vg. Deutschl., p. 663, 1831)
named Z. schinziz. But in 1826 Bonaparte had named
an American bird (better known as 7’. fuscicollis Vieill.)
Tringa schinzw also. So that we have ‘ 7. schinzii Br’
and ‘ 7’. schinzw Bp., and sad confusion has arisen from
this, especially since ‘ 7. schinzw Sp. or Bonaparte’s

BIRDS OF ICELAND ON

Sandpiper, has of late years been detected as a straggler
to Europe. Now Herra Groéndal has recorded 7’. schinzu
from Iceland as having been shot by Preyer (see Levse
in loc.), but he calls it Zringa schinzw var. Chr. L. Br.,
which shows that he did not consider Preyer’s bird to
be the American Bonaparte’s Sandpiper. Nevertheless
Howard Saunders has taken it to mean the latter, and
not the former (see Man. Brit. Birds, p. 567); and
T. fuscicollis, to give it its true name, is duly enrolled as
a visitor to Iceland. I have every reason for disagreeing
with this conclusion. I have specimens of the little
Dunlin (called on our east coast the ‘Drain Dunlin,’
from the places it frequents in preference to the shore)
from Iceland, where my experience assures me that it
is pretty common. Also, in 1900, Herra Gréndal kindly
took me to his house and showed me a water-colour of
T. schinzi, done by himself, in which the bird was
represented with a black breast. Now the ‘Drain
Dunlin, 7. schinzit Lr., wears a black breast in summer
like the ordinary Dunlin; Bonaparte’s Sandpiper does
not. Therefore, I must respectfully decline to admit
the claims of the latter to a place amongst the birds
of Iceland.

The food of the Dunlin consists of diminutive larve,
crustacea, insects, vermes, etc.

98 BIRDS OF ICELAND

Tringa subarquata (Giild.).
CURLEW SANDPIPER.

Native name: none.

Professor Newton was informed by the late Wiliam
Proctor, who has been so often mentioned above, that
he had received several specimens of this bird from
Iceland. Proctor was in some degree the mentor of
my youth, as he taught me to stuff birds and did not
in any way repress the tendency to ornithology with
which I was born. And I know that he could not well
be mistaken respecting such a bird, well known on our
British coasts. At the same time, unlike the Knot
and others, it is not a bird which we should expect to
visit Iceland, as its breeding-grounds (as far as we
know them) are not in America, but in North Asia; and
therefore it would go north-east from us and nowhere
near Iceland. The bird has not been met with in Iceland
since, and so far its occurrence there rests on Proctor’s
testimony. (See Newton, bis, 1864, p. 132.)

Tringa striata, Linn. PURPLE SANDPIPER.

Native names: ‘Sendlngur’ (Sand-haunter), also
‘Selningur,’ a variant which, as Herra Grondal
says, 18 meaningless. Professor Newton adds
‘fjalla-foela’ as a name for this species in summer
dress, but Gréndal does not mention it, nor have
I met any one who recognised it as a bird name.

A resident, common on the shores in winter, breeding

‘TQIoYSUyVAIVULY oY} WO

(W223 OOFY) T1INACL Sealy”

‘020Yg ~‘AMOWNAC “N ‘H

BIRDS OF ICELAND 99

on fells and high plateaux, where its nest, owing to the
vast area of country suitable to its requirements, is not
commonly met with. I have found, or been at the
finding of, six in Iceland, and have met with it more
frequently on the Arnarvatnsheidi than anywhere,
where it is the characteristic small Wader.

It nests on elevated bare ground in June, as soon
as the ground is dry enough after the melting of the
snow. The nest is placed amongst a patch of Dryas
octopetala, Loiseleuria procumbens, or an absolutely
prostrate willow, and is quite unconcealed, the bird
trusting to its obscure colouring and the withered-
leaf colour of the eggs to escape observation. The
nest is a mere hollow—as deep as the eggs—with a
few dead willow, Dryas, or Vaccinium leaves in it, an
odd Ptarmigan’s feather or two, and a few off the bird’s
own breast as lining. I have, however, found one nest
(which was on a wet fell) rather substantially lned
with grass. The eggs, four in number, are much like
the Dunlin’s (and many of the eggs sold for the former
are those of the latter only), but are a shade larger
(14 inches long, or nearly), and when fresh decidedly
ereener in ground colour; but this beautiful tint soon
fades into a light olivaceous brown. The bird sits very
close indeed. I have never met with the nest of this
species in Iceland at a less elevation than 1200 to
1500 feet above the sea.

In summer the bird is generally dusky, thickly
spotted on the breast with black and grey, and on the
crown and scapulars with buff and white. In winter

100 BIRDS OF ICELAND

it is more uniformly dusky, but the best distinguishing
marks at both seasons are the uniform dark, nearly
black, rump which, with the back, has an obscure
purple sheen which is most noticeable in winter dress,
and by the three white secondary quills which show
conspicuously on the wing. Length 84 inches, wing
about 5 inches.

Howard Saunders’ statement that this is ‘the most
plentiful of its genus in Iceland’ (Man. Brit. Birds,
p. 579) is somewhat misleading, I think. Probably five
pairs of Dunlins breed in Iceland to one pair of Purple
Sandpipers; and the latter is much more numerous, I
feel certain, on the shores in winter and autumn, in
the ageregate, than on the fells in summer. Of course
this is a difficult question to decide, but I believe I
have travelled the country sufficiently to arrive at
some sort of an idea on the point.

The birds feed on small insects, crustacea and
mollusca, in summer, frequenting the margins of hill
tarns for this purpose; in winter they live on the
coast, preferring those where there is seaweed (and
rocks) to bare sandy coasts. Quite silent at the nest,
and very nearly so at all times.

Tringa canutus, Linn. KwNor.
Native name: Raudbrystingur (Red-breasted one), a
name which it shares with the Grey Phalarope.

A spring and autumn migrant, visiting the coasts,
sometimes in considerable numbers, on its way to and

BIRDS OF ICELAND 101

from its Arctic breeding-grounds in the extreme north
of America. No naturalist, as far as I am aware, has
ever seen it inland in Iceland during the breeding
season, or in any place where there was the least
likelihood of its nesting, so that Faber’s surmise that
it would probably be found breeding on the uplands
in Iceland remains unfulfilled, and is likely to.

The Knot reaches Iceland about the end of May,
and soon moves on. At this time it has light chestnut
underparts; black back, the feathers bordered with
white and spotted with chestnut; head and hind neck
dull red with dusky streaks. Length 10 inches, wing
64 inches. The winter dress, and that of the young
in their first autumn, are totally unlike that of the
summer, See Saunders’ Manual, or British Birds, their
Nests and Eggs.

Calidris arenaria (Linn.). SANDERLING.

Native name: ‘Sanderla.’

A passing migrant in some numbers in spring and
autumn, on its way to and from its breeding-grounds
in Greenland and Arctic America. It also breeds in
the extreme north of Asia. Howard Saunders opines
that ‘it undoubtedly nests in some districts of Iceland.’
I personally hardly know what to say. In the Jdzs for
1886 (p. 50) I described the discovery of a nest which
we were confident was a Sanderling’s. I knew the
Sanderling familiarly enough, and followed the parent
which left the nest for a hundred yards or more,

102 BIRDS OF ICELAND

with my glasses focussed upon it at a distance of ten
to twenty yards. It had unmistakably a chestnut
head and neck and a pure white breast, and I returned
to the nest absolutely certain that I had been following
a Sanderling. By ill-luck neither of us carried a gun
that day. The eggs were almost on the point of
hatching, and were in appearance miniatures of the
Whimbrel’s eggs, corresponding exactly to the plate of
the Sanderling’s eggs in Nares’ Narrative. I submitted
the carbolised eges, on my return to England, to the
examination of a gentleman whose judgment on such
matters I consider to be equal to anybody’s. He
offered to buy them, miserable specimens as they were,
for £2 each, which showed pretty conclusively what
he thought of them. Afterwards Carter extracted the
chicks in bits from his pair of eggs, and I did the
same with mine—and they all had minute hind toes!
The Sanderling has none, not even the rudimentary
nail, which, as Mr. W. E. Clarke has shown us (Zdvs,
1892, p. 402), is always to be found on the Kittiwake,
where all other gulls have a hind toe. In the Kitti-
wake the absence of the hind toe is clearly due to
arrested development; in the Sanderling, as no rudi-
ment survives, it is possible that it exists in the embryo
and is lost at hatching, as the ‘egg-tooth’ is. At all
events, these four hind toes cannot drive out of my
mind the conviction that on that day I saw a Sander-
ling leave her nest.

The eggs of the Sanderling, as hinted above, are of
an olivaceous buff, spotted with light umber brown,

BIRDS OF ICELAND 103

and are a reduced copy of the Whimbrel’s egg. Their
length is nearly 1,3; inches.

The Sanderling was seen on Grimsey in June 1820
by Faber. In 1860 an egg was offered to Preyer.
Proctor saw the Sanderling on Grimsey, also, in 1837,
and subsequently had eggs sent to him which were
said to be Sanderlings’. I recollect some of these in
his possession—they struck me as being those of the
Ringed Plover. Professor Newton also mentions this
bird’s eggs being made to do duty for those of the
Sanderling.

The Sanderling in summer dress has a chestnut head
and neck; back dark brown, the feathers edged with
chestnut and tipped with white. Shoulder black (it
shows very conspicuously in flight, in all stages of
plumage). Length 8 inches, wing 4? inches. The
winter dress, and young bird’s first autumnal dress,
are entirely different from the summer plumage. The
food consists of small insects, crustacea, worms, minute
mollusca; up country, in breeding quarters, they seem
glad to eat small buds of Arctic plants, as they doubt-
less get there before minute animal life has quite
awakened from the long winter.

| Machetes pugnax (Linn.). Rurr.

Native name: ‘’Aflogakragi’ or ‘ Kragi.’
According to Faber (Prodromus, p. 30) a female was
shot near Reykjavik early in September 1820. Gréndal
adds, ‘not noticed since, and in Verzeichniss he puts

104 BIRDS OF ICELAND

it in brackets as dubious; and, though there is no
particular reason why it should not stray to Iceland,
as it has done to the Faeroes, I think I shall follow
Herra Grondal’s example here. |

Totanus calidris (Linn.). RepsHanK.

Native name: ‘Stelkur’ (=‘ Stalker’).

A summer visitor; nowhere, as far as I have seen,
abundant, but universally distributed in small numbers.
It arrives in May and leaves in September, a few
individuals remaining somewhat later. The nest is
always well concealed, amongst long grass or sedge,
or in a willow patch, and always near water. It is
lined with a little grass, and the four eggs are stone
buff in ground colour, blotched with light-bluish grey
and spotted with dark brown, chiefly at the large end,
and are 13 inches long. I have more than once found
the nest on an islet in a fresh-water lake in Iceland.
The bird has a sporting gamey sort of look, but should
never be shot, as it is coarse-flavoured and useless for
the table. |

It is readily to be distinguished by its brown upper
parts (with a white rump) streaked and barred with
very dark brown; its white underparts spotted on the
throat, breast, and sides with light brown; barred tail,
white bar across the wing (showing very conspicuously
in flight) and long orange legs. Length 11 inches,
wing 6? inches.

Grondal merely says, ‘common on the coasts,’ mean-

BIRDS OF ICELAND 105

ing, no doubt, that it flocks on the coasts in spring on
arrival, and in autumn previous to departure, as it
does in England.

Limosa belgica (Gmel.). BLAcK-TAILED
GopwITt.

Native name: ‘Jadrakan’ (with variants, ‘Jardreka,
‘Jadreki, older ‘jadrakarn’). This name can be
explained to mean ‘ earth-shoveller’ (Jérd—reka)
but Grondal prefers to consider it a Gaelic word
‘adharcan’ (Lapwing), borrowed, and applied to
the wrong bird. ‘Jadrakarn’ occurs in the Younger
Edda.

A summer visitor, arriving in April (1st May, accord-
ing to Nielsen), breeding only, as Faber states (Pro-
dromus, p. 25) in ‘Arnes and Rangarvalla Syslur in
the south-east, leaving the country in the beginning
of September. Very seldom met with elsewhere in
Iceland, even as a wanderer.

The nest is a slight affair of grass amongst sedge or
other long herbage in a marsh, and the four pear-
shaped eggs are of a pale olive brown with darker
brown spots—coloured very much hke the Whimbrel’s
eggs—and measure about 24 inches long.

The bird in summer has the head, neck, and breast
light chestnut, with dark stripes on the crown, and
black bars on the breast; mantle brown, blotched with
black ; belly, rump, and a bar across the wing, white;
tail-feathers black, with white bases. Legs and bill

106 BIRDS OF ICELAND

long, the latter measuring 4 to 44 inches, and slightly
up-turned. Total length 16 inches, wing 9 inches;
female rather the larger. All the chestnut colour is
lost in winter plumage, and the dark tints generally
are softened.

The food consists of insects, worms, crustacea, etc.
Faber says ‘im ventriculo Wasserpflanzen,’ but this
is quite contrary to the general experience.

Numenius arquata (Linn.). Curtew.
Native names: ‘Spoi, ‘Stor1 Spoi.’

A rare straggler in autumn. Faber obtained the
first historical specimen at Reykjavik on September 6,
1819. Since then, a large flock, as Herra Groéndal
states, visited the south coast in the autumn of 1875,
but did not stay long. One at least was killed, and
Herra Gréndal obtained a skin (Verzeichniss, p. 361).
In Skyrsla he also mentions that a flock visited
‘Alftanes in 1876, from which one was obtained for
the Reykjavik Museum. It is singular that he does
not mention this latter occurrence in the Verzeichniss,
published in 1886. Possibly the two occurrences are
the same, and the latter date the correct one. Nielsen
also gives an occurrence (Oris, 1887, p. 157) without
date or locality, which may again refer to the same.

The Curlew has never been known to breed in
Iceland, nor is it particularly likely to do so. It is
a large edition of the Whimbrel, without the two
broad sooty stripes on the crown. Length 21 to 26

BIRDS OF ICELAND 107

inches, the female the largest, and with the longest
bill; wing 11# to 124 inches.

Food (when on the shores) crustacea, worms, and
any small creatures; inland they live on insects and
berries, but seem to prefer small helices to anything,
and eat enormous numbers of them.

Numenius phceopus (Linn.). WHIMBREL.

Native names: ‘Spoi, ‘ Litla Spoi’—from the
bird’s note.

A summer visitor, arriving in April and leaving in
September. One of the commonest birds in Iceland;
one of the most invariable recollections which a visitor
to Iceland bears away with him is that of a Whimbrel
perched on the apex of a rock or boulder, screaming
at him. It breeds everywhere on grassy land, or drier
marsh, from the high fells of the interior almost down
to sea-level, but is most abundant at moderate eleva-
tions. The nest is a small hollow, generally on a
hummock, but sometimes between two, and is not
much concealed. The four eggs (sometimes three
only) are olive brown, blotched and spotted with sepia
brown, and are generally very pyriform. Length about
24 inches. There is seldom any lining to the nest.
I once found, lying beside a nest containing eggs, a
little heap of small rounded gravel about as big as
peas, which must have been recently brought from a
river-bed about a mile off, necessitating a good many
journeys there; I surmised that this might have been

108 BIRDS OF ICELAND

prepared for the young birds, when hatched, to digest
their food with.

Whimbrels’ eges, with those of the Golden Plover,
seem to be the staple prey of the Raven and Richard-
son’s Skua. I have seen many encounters between
Whimbrels and the latter robber, which have generally
ended favourably to the right when there were both
the Whimbrels present; but a pair of Skuas to a single
Whimbrel is too great odds. I once saw a Raven, on
plunder bent, get a sound thrashing from a pair of
Whimbrels (Zbis, 1886, p. 48).

The Whimbrel is a fair bird for the table, but no
more can be said. The sportsman in Iceland mentally
gives it the same place in his estimation as to the
French partridge at home, and does not, therefore,
shoot it when he can get Golden Plover or Snipe.

The plumage of the head, neck, breast, and upper
surface is pale grey-brown with darker centres to the
feathers ; the crown has two broad sooty-black stripes
covering the greater part of it. Rump, chin, and
centre of belly white; axillaries (the long narrow
feathers under the wing) white, barred with brown;
bill long and decurved. Total length 16 to 17 inches,
female a little the larger; wing 9} inches.

Food, insects, worms, crustacea, land-snails.

BIRDS OF ICELAND 109

Numenius hudsonicus, Latham.
AMERICAN WHIMBREL.

Native name: None.

One specimen of this bird, received by Dr. Kjcer-
bolling from Iceland (Nawmannia, vi. p. 308; see
also Newton, Baring Gould, p. 413) furnishes the
only existing record of this bird’s appearance in
Iceland, and it has only once besides been recognised
elsewhere in Europe. It might rather have been
expected that WV. borealis, the Eskimo Curlew, would
have been the species to stray to Iceland rather
than the present one; it has occurred half a dozen
times in Britain, and proportionately elsewhere in
western Europe.

Numenius hudsonicus may be distinguished from
the Whimbrel by its rather smaller size (length
14 to 16 inches, the female larger); under surface of
the body tinged with buff, and, especially, rufous
axillaries (see last species).

Sterna macrura, Naum. Arctic TERN.

Native names: ‘ Kria, ‘perna, the former suggesting
very accurately the bird’s note, the second pro-
bably borrowed from the Danish ‘Terna.’

A summer visitor in considerable numbers, common
on the coast, and penetrating a good distance up the
rivers. It breeds in colonies, mostly on or near the
coast, but often on lakes a great distance from it

110 BIRDS OF ICELAND

(e.g. Myvatn, pingvallavatn, Arnarvatn). The nest
is a slight hollow in the ground, and is usually
without any lining; the two eggs (occasionally three)
are a little over 14 inches in length and very variable
in coloration; the ground colour varies from light
blue-grey to grey-buff, and from a warm ochre to
olive; and they are spotted with blue-grey and dark
brown.

Arctic Terns are very bold at their nests, and will
stoop at any intruder’s head, and often with some
effect. I saw one dash repeatedly at the head of a
cirl who was collecting eggs on an island in an
Icelandic lake; once the bird descended with such
force as to break several of the eggs she was carry-
ing on her head in a basket. Two days later I
was unkind enough to be immensely amused at the
predicament of my companion (Mr. Tom Carter, now
doing good ornithological work in Australia). He
had waded to a little islet in a lake, and was returning
with some eggs in his cap, very gingerly, for the lava
bottom was full of nasty cracks. The terns spied
him at their sanctuary, and hastened up, and one
vicious bird added very materially to his anxieties
by rapping him on his undefended head with its
bill, with sufficient force to draw blood in more
than one place. The Arctic Tern reaches Iceland
in May, and leaves in late August; but these dates,
like all others respecting the arrivals and departures
of birds in Iceland, are subject to season and weather,
and vary considerably.

BIRDS OF ICELAND 10

The Arctic Tern is not likely to be confused with
any other bird visiting Iceland. It has a black cap; is
blue-grey above, pearl-grey below; bill and feet bright
red; tail deeply forked, and the whole bird of a slender
and elegant build. Leneth 143 inches, wing 10 inches.
No other species of Tern has been ascertained to occur
in Iceland, though Mr. Baring Gould suggests that he
saw the Common Tern, and I have an idea that I
have seen a similar statement in a euide-book or
somewhere.

Their normal food consists of small fish (of useless
shore species, mostly) and shrimps, and other crustacea.
What they feed upon inland I do not remember,
beyond the recollection that they eat insects of any
kind they can get. They are liable to vicissitudes
in this respect; in 1885 we found great numbers of
the downy young dead, some in the nest, some about
anywhere, on the Myvatn islands. Their stomachs
contained nothing but tapeworms, that we could see.

Larus canus, Linn. CoMMON GULL.

Native name: None.

This Gull is unaccountably scarce in Iceland—un-
accountably, because it breeds numerously all round
the coasts of Norway. But it is not as uncommon
in Iceland as is generally believed. Gréndal only
records one occurrence, but Professor Newton picked
up a skin in Reykjavik in 1858; and I certainly
saw three at the same time, flying about in the

112 BIRDS OF ICELAND

harbour at Heimaey in the Vestmannaeyjar on June 3,
1900, and three or four more between there and
Reykjavik.

The Kittiwake is the only Gull it is hkely to be
confused with in Iceland, but that bird has always
dark legs and feet (immature examples a black bill
also). The Kittiwake is, besides, slenderer built, and
has no hind toe.

The Common Gull has the back and wings grey,
primaries blackish at their ends, rest of the body
white; legs and feet greenish yellow. In winter and
in immature plumage the head is mottled with grey-
brown. Length 183 inches, wing 14 inches.

Larus marinus, Linn.
GREATER BLACK-BACKED GULL.

Native names: ‘Svart-bakur, ‘ Veidi-bjalla’ (this ap-
pears to mean ‘hunting-bell,’ which seems to
suggest the cumbrous and, to us, meaningless
periphrases of early Icelandic poetry); for the
immature bird, ‘Kafla-bringur’ (=‘ Spotted
breast’).

Resident and common, breeding from the sea-coast
to the lakes of the desert interior. The nest is placed
on a sea-cliff, skerry, or an islet in an inland tarn; the
egos (three in number, or only two) are rather variable
in size, but average three inches in length; their colour
is stone-buff and they are spotted with dark blue-grey
and umber brown.

BIRDS OF ICELAND 118

The adult bird is white, with dark grey-brown
mantle and wings; wing-quills (primaries) nearly
black, tipped with white; legs and feet flesh pink.
Length 30 inches, wing 20 inches; females smaller.
Young birds are dirty white, mottled with brown,
and show no black on the back till their third year.
Young gulls are very difficult to distinguish, as a
rule, but there ought to be little difficulty with the
young of this species in Iceland, as Larus fuscus and
L. argentatus do not occur there. On the score of
size, they can be separated from all but ZL. glaucus
or L. leucopterus, from which the black on their
primaries will distinguish them.

As a bold and greedy robber, this bird comes in for
a good deal of persecution in the breeding season. It
preys on fish; eggs of any kind of bird; young,
wounded, or weakly birds; young lambs or any kind
of carrion. But it is a picturesque bird of a graceful
and stately flight, and a great ornament to the shores
and sea.

Larus glaucus, Brtinnich. GLAucous GULL.

Native names: ‘ Hvit-mafur,’ ‘ Hvit-fugl’; the
young, ‘Gra-mafur.’

Resident, and pretty common round the coasts, but
not seen in the interior (as in Novaia Zemlya, for in-
stance), nor does it breed there, but in crags, etc.,
round the coast. It is not, however, in my experience,
anything like as abundant as the last species (pace

H

114 BIRDS OF ICELAND

Faber), and voyaging round the coast three Blackbacks
will be seen for one Glaucous Gull. The eggs are
normally a little smaller than those of the Blackback,
but it is not safe to trust to this as a distinction, as the
Blackback’s eggs are variable in size: the most that
can be said is, that Glaucous Gulls’ eggs are usually
under 3 inches in length, Greater Blackbacks’ usually
above 3 inches. In colour they are almost identical.
This is enough to show that it is desirable to take the
Glaucous Gull’s eggs in Iceland for oneself, rather than
purchase such as may be offered for sale at the various
ports.

The Glaucous Gull is white, with a pearl-grey mantle,
and no black on the flight-feathers, which are white,
pearl-ecrey at their bases; legs and feet bright pink.
Length 29 to 31 inches, wing 18 to 19 inches; females
the smaller. Young birds are mottled with hght brown,
but have the white wings; they take several years to
reach maturity.

The Glaucous Gull is just as bold a robber, and fully
as omnivorous, as the Greater Blackback. I saw a
pair hustle, and drive off without difficulty, a Sea-eagle
in Novaia Zemlya. Iwas the more annoyed, because
the Sea-eagle’s presence in that country had not been
made a matter of absolute certainty by means of a
skin; and I was lying in wait for that one, in the
hopes of acquiring his, when the gulls made their
unwelcome appearance, and turned him back.

BIRDS OF ICELAND 115

Larus leucopterus, Faber. IckLAND GULL.

Nate names: ‘Hvitmafur,’ ete., like the last, from
the white flight-feathers.

A winter visitor, only, from farther north, and in no
great numbers. First described by ‘Fuel Faber’ from
specimens he obtained in Iceland, and recognised as
different from Z. glaucus. He has given a long and
minute description and account of the species in his
Prodromus (pp. 91-98). Its breeding-grounds are in
Jan Mayen and Greenland.

The bird may be shortly described as a small copy
of Larus glaucus, with proportionately longer wings ;
legs and feet yellowish pink. Length 22 inches,
wing 16 to 17 inches; females rather the smaller. In
winter plumage, the head and neck are more or less
flecked with pale brown. Young birds resemble those
of L. glaucus, but are smaller. This species appears on
the Iceland coasts about the end of September, and
remains till the end of April, a few immature indi-
viduals remaining even longer. In habits it resembles
the ‘Burgomaster,’ as sailors call the Glaucous Gull,
and feeds on fish, marine creatures, and garbage of any
kind. Its flight is easier and more graceful than that
of the Glaucous.

116 BIRDS OF ICELAND

Rissa tridactyla (Linn.). KirrrwakeE.

Native names: ‘ Rita,’ ‘ Ritsa,’ ‘Skegla.’

A summer visitor in great numbers, probably as
great as of all other Laridz put together, if the Arctic
Tern be excepted. It arrives in Iceland about the
middle of March and leaves at the end of September.
Many of the individuals are in immature dress, this
species requiring two, or more, years to arrive at
maturity. Doubtless some of the birds in immature
dress breed. The nest is placed on a cliff ledge, or on
the turf of a marine islet, and consists of a few bents
of dead grass, or scraps of seaweed. The eggs (two,
sometimes three) are light in ground colour, varying
from light grey to stone buff, occasionally with an
olive tinge, and are blotched and mottled with blue
grey and umber brown. Length under 24 inches.

The Kittiwake may be distinguished from all other
European gulls by the absence of a hind toe, though
traces of this organ are sometimes found on one, or
both feet. Head, neck, tail, and underparts white ;
mantle grey; wings (flight-feathers) with a good deal
of black; legs and feet black. Length 153 inches,
wing 12 inches. Immature birds have a grey nape,
blackish shoulder, and black or sooty tip to the
tail.

The food consists of fish, crustacea, and any small
marine creatures.

BIRDS OF ICELAND 117

Pagophila eburnea (Phipps). Ivory GULL.

Native name: ‘Hvitmafur’? ‘’Ismafur’ ?

A scarce occasional visitor in winter or early spring,
and only noticed of recent years. The late William
Proctor received two specimens from the north (pro-
bably Grimsey), and these, I believe, were the first
record (Newton, iis, 1864, p. 132). Herra Grondal
saw a skin in a merchant’s store in April 1879, and
calls the bird otherwise unknown to him. The only
other one for which I can give chapter and verse,
though I have heard of others being seen, was shot in
the Eyjafjordr early in the year 1894, and is now in
my collection. I do not fancy that it would be difficult
to obtain specimens along the north coast in any fairly
severe winter.

The Ivory Gull is of an ivory white all over, with a
subdued rosy tint when alive, which soon fades after
death ; legs and feet black. Length 18 inches, wing
13 inches, or a little more. The immature birds have
a greyish head, and upper parts spotted with black ;
tail-feathers tipped with black, and a black bar on
the flight-feathers. The Ivory Gull belies its refined
appearance, as it feeds greedily upon whale and seal
carcases and any marine offal, as well as small marine
creatures.

118 BIRDS OF ICELAND

stercorarius catarrhactes (Linn.).
GREAT SKUA.

Native names: ‘Skumur’ (Dusky [bird] ?), ‘ Hafskumur,’
‘Hakalla- (or Hakarla-) skumur’ (=‘Sea-carle,’ a
name also given to the Scymnus microcephalus,
or Arctic shark).

resident in considerable numbers, breeding chiefly
on the south coast, where there are four colonies
(three of them consisting of a great many pairs of
birds) mentioned by Faber. There are also two small
colonies in the north, in pingeyrar Sysla. It does not
appear that in any of the former in the south there
has been any decrease in individuals since Faber’s
time, except perhaps in the one in the Olfusa.

The eggs are laid in a slight hollow in the shingle or
sand, and are two in number, and are extremely like
certain varieties of the Lesser Black-backed Gull’s eggs;
their length is a little over 2? inches, and their colour
an olive brown with darker umber brown spots and
streaks. gos are seldom to be found in the nests
before May 11. The parents are very aggressive at
the nest, and Faber describes the exciting time that he
and his dog went through at one of the larger breeding
colonies in the south.

This species is considerably the largest of the four
Skuas, measuring 24 inches in length, or a little more;
gaining, too, nothing of its length from the possession
of elongated tail-feathers, like the other three species;

BIRDS OF ICELAND 119

the wing measures 16 inches. The plumage of both
sexes 1s alike, viz. brown all over, with darker wings
and tail, and fulvous tips to the feathers of the
head, throat, and upper parts; the wing-quills have
white bases which form a conspicuous white bar,
hardly visible except in flight. The young birds are
rather more mottled with fulvous, and show very little
tendency to hackle-shaped feathers on the neck, which
are a feature of the adult.

The Great Skua is a powerful bird, of strong flight,
and is often seen many miles from land, but does not,
in Iceland, go any distance inland to breed as some of
the smaller Skuas do, preferring, for that purpose, sand-
dunes near the sea. It is a bold and rapacious crea-
ture, robbing gulls and gannets, at their fishing-grounds,
of the fruits of their labour; but no carrion comes
amiss to it, and it is quite capable (and occasionally
inclined that way) of killing and eating smaller gulls.
The nestlings wear a grey down, and by the end of
August are full grown.

Stercorarius pomatorhinus (Temm. ).
POMATORHINE SKUA.

Native name: ‘ Kjoi’ (partim).

An itrecular visitor to the coast from autumn to
spring, occasionally shot along the shores. I have not
myself seen it, not having devoted any attention to the
coast-line, nor been in Iceland later than the end of

120 BIRDS OF ICELAND

August, but about that time and earlier (¢g., July 25)
I have seen this bird at sea consorting with the
next species within a few miles of the coasts of Ice-
land. Faber declares that it bred near Eyrarbakki, in
June 1821, but as no one else has even suggested such
a possibility, he must have been mistaken, especially
since he describes the eggs as no longer than those of
Richardson’s Skua. It breeds in Western Greenland,
north of Egedesminde, and more or less in Northern
Asia.

The adult is dark brown above, black on the head;
neck white with lhght yellow hackles on the sides;
underparts white in adults, with a brown band across
the chest when partially immature, and the under-
parts more or less barred with dusky. The most
characteristic feature is the two central tail-feathers,
which are prolonged four inches beyond the rest and
turned half round, with the blade at right angles to
them, the greatest diameter being vertical and not
horizontal, like the rest of the tail. This pecularity
can be seen a long way off. Length 21 inches, wing
144 inches. Quite young birds are brown all over, with
lighter rusty tips to most of the feathers, and the two
tail-feathers but little elongated.

Like other Skuas, the Pomatorhine robs gulls and
terns of the produce of their fishing, and will eat any
dead offal, floating or cast ashore.

BIRDS OF ICELAND 121

Stercorarius crepidatus (Gmel.).
RICHARDSON’S SKUA.

Native name: ‘Kjoi’ (partim).

A summer visitor in considerable numbers, from the
end of April to mid-September, breeding (singly, not
in colonies, like the last two species) here and there,
not only near the sea, but far into the interior—
wherever, in fact, other birds are sufficiently numerous
for it to find a livelihood by robbing them of their eggs
and young.

The nest is generally situated in a little hollow on
high ground; it consists of a small depression in the
turf or lichen large enough to contain the two eggs;
occasionally it is on the top of a little mound if the
hollow be a damp one. The eggs are very like normal
examples of those of the Brown-headed Gull (Larus
ridibundus); they are olive brown in colour, spotted
and blotched with dark brown, and 24 inches long.

There are two varieties of this species—what are
known as the ‘light’ and ‘ dark’ forms—and in Iceland
they are about equally common. A breeding pair may
consist of one light and one dark bird, two light or two
dark ones. The dark form is sooty brown all over,
rather darker on crown, wings, and tail. The light
form has light underparts with a quite white breast,
and a light yellow patch of hackle-shaped feathers on
the side of the head (this is indistinctly indicated in
the dark form also). There are also intermediate

122 BIRDS OF ICELAND

forms, but I am inclined to attribute many of these to
immaturity—as the young birds are all dusky to begin
with, and I have only once met with a decided inter-
mediate form amongst old birds in Iceland in the
summer. In all adults the two central tail-feathers
are about three inches longer than the rest of the tail,
and are narrowed to a blunt point, but are not twisted
vertically, like those of the Pomatorhine Skua. Length
20 inches, wing 13 to 134 inches. Young birds are of .
a pale brown, with darker streaks and bars, and rusty
tips to the feathers of the upper parts; central tail-
feathers not perceptibly elongated.

The Arctic, or Richardson’s Skua (all the Skuas are
‘Arctic ’) is very bold at its nest, and stoops repeatedly
at the head of an intruder in a rather threatening
manner, but never actually strikes except with its
wings. It gains a rather disreputable living on the
proceeds of others’ industry. Seeing a Gull or Tern
wending homewards from the fishing with the appear-
ance of a comfortably filled crop, this bird attacks it
with great apparent ferocity, stooping at it like a
Hawk, but apparently only striking with its wings,
as above, until the persecuted bird tries to lighten
itself by ejecting the fish in its crop; this the Skua,
by a quick turn, catches, usually before it reaches the
water. All the Skuas have this moss-trooper dis-
position, but it is oftenest observed in this, the
commonest species. Inland, in the breeding season,
they rob other birds of their eggs or young (especially,
in Iceland, the Golden Plover and Whimbrel), one

BIRDS OF ICELAND 123

Skua often engaging the parent in charge of the nest,
while the other secures the booty. On the sea they
will also pick up anything they see, or alight on the
water and gorge on a dead bird or floating carcase of
any kind.

Stercorarius parasiticus (Linn. ).
BUFFON'S SKUA.

Native name: ‘ Kjoi’ (partim).

A rare occasional wanderer to the coasts, breeding
in Greenland, Spitzbergen, north Norway, etc. Ido not
think that Icelanders usually distinguish between the
three smaller Skuas; this one is probably not so
uncommon on the coasts in spring and autumn as the
existing records would seem to indicate. Professor
Newton saw several at Kirkjuvogr (south-west), and
obtained a specimen shot at Keflavik in the same
neighbourhood; this was in 1858. In 1860 Preyer
saw a skin in Reykjavik. I saw two near Langanes
(north-east), within a couple of miles of the coast, in
August 1894. No Icelander has recorded it.

Buffon’s Skua is a small edition of the hght form
of Richardson’s Skua, with a still longer tail, the two
central feathers, which are very narrow, projecting 7 to 9
inches beyond the rest of the tail. In all stages they
may be separated from Richardson’s Skua by the size,
and by the black shafts of the primary quills (except
the two outer ones on each side, which are white). In

124 BIRDS OF ICELAND

Richardson’s Skua the shafts of all the primaries are
white at all aves. Length 23 inches (144 without the
central tail-feathers), wing about 12 inches.

Buffon’s Skua feeds on any animal matter, insects,
crustacea, stolen fish and eggs, mice, lemmings (in
Europe), and sometimes moorland berries.

Alea torda, Linn. RaAzorRBILt.

Native names: ‘’Alca, ‘Klumba’; to which Herra
Gréndal adds in brackets ‘Klumbunefja’ (Club-
bill), and ‘drunnefja’ or ‘drumbnefja’ (Pole- or
beam-bill).

A common resident, breeding in suitable localities
round the coasts, assembling in large flocks during the
winter, especially off the south coasts. It nests in
colonies, on ledges and in holes of sea-cliffs, laying
one large egg, usually white in ground colour, but
sometimes of a light maroon or umber brown, blotched
and scribbled with dark brown and black. They are
usually less pear-shaped and rounder at the small end
than Guillemot’s eggs, and are about 2? inches long.

The bird is black above, with a sooty throat which
in winter turns white; rest of underparts white; bill
flat with a thin curved white line across the middle,
and another from the top of the bill to the eye.
Length 17 inches, wing 73 inches.

The food consists of fish, and any marine creatures
of suitable size. The Razorbill passes most of its time

BIRDS OF ICELAND 125

at sea, and does not approach the coasts closely, except
in stormy weather and during the breeding season.

Alca impennis, Linn.
GREAT AUK, GAREFOWL.

Native name: ‘ Geir-fugl, etymology uncertain.

Formerly a resident in Iceland, much more abun-
dant in Labrador and Newfoundland; but the bird has
not been seen alive for more than fifty years, and is
undoubtedly extinct. Its extinction is, no doubt, due
to man’s agency. For it was a large bird, with a
stupid insensibility to danger, and also, unfortunately
for itself, it was so short-winged as to be flightless ; and
it was good to eat. It could easily be overtaken and
knocked on the head with a stick; it even allowed
itself to be driven on board a ship over a plank or a
sail stretched between the deck and the shore. We
hear of Great Auks being thus obtained by the ton
weight, and afterwards salted in barrels, so that the
fishermen and others who visited the Newfoundland
coasts and fishing banks counted on a supply of these
birds to victual their ships. They seem also to have
been killed there merely for their feathers. Nothing
could withstand such a wholesale persecution, let alone
a bird of so confiding or stupid a disposition, which
only laid one egg in the year, so the Great Auk in
North America vanished from the earth like Rytina
stelleri, the Manatee of Behrine’s Straits, which only

126 BIRDS OF ICELAND

survived for twenty-seven years its discovery by
man. |

In Iceland the Garefowl was nothing like so abun-
dant; it seems to have been confined to four or five
small southern islands, and not to have visited the
mainland atall. These islands were called ‘ Geirfugla-
sker’—Garefowl Skerries—from the bird’s presence
on them. There was one near Papey in the Beru-
fjordr (south-east) ; one on the Vestmannaeyjar (south);
at neither of these do Great Auks ever appear to have
been common. Of the other islands, one was the
Geirfuglasker off Cape Reykjanes (south-west), where
a considerable number of Auks used to breed, and
whence many birds and eggs were obtained; this
island, owing to submarine volcanic disturbances, dis-
appeared entirely in the year 1830, and its place is now
only marked by beating surf. There is another skerry
of the same group, a mile or two farther out to sea
than the last, called the Geirfugladrangr, but of this
we have very little detailed information; and lastly
there is, nearest Cape Reykjanes, from which it is only
about nine or ten miles distant, an island called Eldey
(Fire-island) or the Meal-sack, on which a good number
of Garefowl used to breed, and upon which the last-
known living Auks were killed in the year 1844.
They had probably vanished finally from the New
World some years previously. The whole history is
a miserable tale of reckless destruction and wasteful-
ness, and any one who would learn further details is
referred to Professor Newton’s paper in the Jdzs (1861,

BIRDS OF ICELAND 127

p. 374, etc.), Mr. Symington Grieve’s The Great Auk or
Garefowl (1885), and the same gentleman’s ‘ Recent
Information about the Great Auk’ (7ransactions, Edin-
burgh Field Naturalists, etc., Society, 1888).

The egg, as most people know (for even the veriest
Gallio must have looked with awe and attention upon
an ege valued at about £300) is a large copy of the
Razorbill’s egg; there are between sixty and seventy
in existence, about eighty skins, five-and-twenty more
or less complete skeletons, besides a great many odd
bones. The bird was a large edition of the Razorbill
also, but about 2 feet 8 inches long. It had a large
and conspicuous white patch between the eye and bill.
As already mentioned, it was so short in the wings as
to be incapable of flight, but was a wonderful diver
and swimmer. It was therefore physically incapable
of breeding in any place where it was safe from man,
and could only land and breed where the rock sloped
up from the water’s edge. For that reason it probably
was very scarce on the Geirfugladrangr—‘drangr’ is a
name only applied to islands with precipitous sides.

Uria troile (Linn.). GuILLEMor.
Native name ; ‘Langnefja,’ or ‘ Langvia,’ and the ‘ringed’
or ‘bridled’ variety is called ‘ Hringvia,’ which
name is sometimes misapplied to the Razorbill.

Resident and abundant, especially in the south;
many remaining to winter. It breeds in thousands on

128 BIRDS OF ICELAND

suitable sea-cliffs, and in common with Puffins and
Razorbills, ete., it is snared in considerable quantities
and eaten; it makes a better provender than would be
expected, too, though I should hesitate to assert that a
Guillemot is equal to a Woodcock.

The single egg is large, and pear-shaped, and very
variable in tint; the usual colours are white or a more
or less bright green, blotched and spotted with dark
brown and black, sometimes pale brown or pale green
spotted and scribbled with light brown, or any of the
above ground colours without markings of any sort.
Leneth 3} inches. If their egg is taken, they lay
another in a day or two.

The bird is sooty brown above, and on the throat
(the latter turning white in winter), with white under-
parts. Length 18 inches, wing 74 inches; bill from
forehead to tip about 2 inches.

The food consists of small fish and other marine
creatures, and the bird is an expert diver lke all the
Alcide.

The ‘ringed’ or ‘ bridled’ Guillemot is only a variety
of this species; it has a ring of white feathers round
the eye, and a white line proceeding backwards along
the furrow behind the eye.

BIRDS OF ICELAND 129

Uria bruennichi (E. Sabine).
BRUNNICH’S GUILLEMOT.

Native name: ‘Stuttnefja’ (Short-bill).

Resident, but not common, breeding in small colonies
near the other Guillemots, especially on the northern
coasts (eg. on Grimsey); elsewhere it is doubtful if
it breeds at all. Itisamuch more Arctic bird in its
range than U. trowle, and as its eggs are not to be
distinguished from those of that bird with anything
like certainty—if at all—the collector had _ better
obtain Briinnich’s Guillemot’s eggs from Greenland,
Jan Mayen, Spitzbergen, or from other places where
the Common Guillemot is not found. The birds are to
be distinguished, however, with care. The bill of this
species 1s much stouter and somewhat shorter (14 to
13 inches from forehead to tip), and has a white line
along the edge of the upper mandible behind the
nostrils. The length of the two birds is much the
same (18 inches), but Briinnich’s has a proportionately
longer wing, viz. 8 to 9 inches, to 74 inches in the
Common Guillemot.

Its food in a general way will doubtless consist of
much the same viands as the Common Guillemots, @e.
in Iceland. But in more fishless seas farther north
it varies a good deal. Three which I dissected off
Novaia Zemlya in 1895 had been feeding exclusively
on small marine crustacea (Copepoda, etc.), none of
them half an inch long; this was, however, in cold
water, and amongst the drift ice.

I

130 BIRDS OF ICELAND

Uria grylle (Linn.). Brack GUILLEMoT.

Native names: ‘Teista’ (Scotice, ‘Tystie’), otherwise
‘peista,’ ‘ kofa,’ ‘teistukofa,’ ‘péturskofa, none of
which I have heard used but the first-mentioned.

Common and resident all round the coasts, breeding
in cracks of rocks and under boulders on sea islets and
skerries; sometimes in sea-cliffs. The Black Guillemot,
unlike the rest of the family, lays two eggs at a time,
of a whitish colour, sometimes with a green tint,
spotted and blotched with blue-grey and dark brown.
Length 2+ inches, or a little more.

The bird is sooty black, with a white patch on the
wing, like a Blackcock’s. The legs, feet, and the inside
of the mouth are of a bright reddish orange. Length
14 inches, wing 6} inches. In winter the upper parts
are much flecked with white, and the underparts nearly
white.

It is a pretty, tame lttle creature, and feeds upon
little fish, crustacea, and marine ‘various. On the
west coast of Scotland I -have found crane-flies
(Tipule) inside it, picked, no doubt, in a drowned state
off the water.

Mergulus alle (Linn.). Lirrte Aux.

Native name: ‘Haftirdill’ or ‘Haftyrdill’ Mohr
christened it ‘Halkion, but the name has never
been generally accepted. The first means ‘a little
object on the sea.’

BIRDS OF ICELAND 131

Resident, not in great numbers in the summer, as
its principal breeding-places are farther north, but
plentiful in winter, when, however, it keeps at a dis-
tance from shore. Its only known Icelandic breeding-
place is on Grimsey, but it is possible that there are
others. Not uncommonly driven inland, as in England,
by fierce storms.

The single egg is large for the size of the bird (nearly
two inches long), pale bluish green, with sometimes faint
spots and scribblings of red-erey ; it is placed in a hole
in the ground, in a burrow excavated by the bird, or
amongst loose stones. I append a quaint extract from
Proctor’s Ms. Journal: ‘Tuesday 3d (of July 1837) I
went in surch of the Little Auk’s eggs etc. I got a fue
with the bird they buld—or rather lay ther single eg¢
a mong the large Stones—the egg is of a skim milk or
light blue colour.’

The bird is nearly black on the upper parts, includ-
ing the head and neck, white underneath. In winter
the chin and throat turn white. Length 8 inches,
wing 43 inches. There is a certain resemblance
between this bird and immature Puffins, and the latter
often get reported as Little Auks in England. The
food consists usually of small oceanic crustacea, etc.,
but they will eat little fish when they can get them,
and fish refuse thrown away by man.

132 BIRDS OF ICELAND

Fratercula arctica (Linn.). Purriy.

Native name: ‘ Lundi’ (whence our Lund-y =‘ ey’).

Resident in large numbers, breeding in colonies on
turf-covered islands and stacks, and in cracks in sea-
cliffs; in the former case the bird excavates a burrow,
at the end of which it deposits its single rough white
egg, faintly spotted and scribbled with grey-brown, and
21 inches long.

The bird is grey-brown above, with a black cap and
ring round the neck; sides of the face light grey, rest
of underparts white. Length 12 inches, wing 6 inches.
The bill is very large and of a grey colour, with several
yellow ridges and a bright red tip. In winter a large
horny sheath, which forms in summer the covering of
the base of the bill, is moulted off. Young birds are
smaller and duskier, and take some time to arrive at
their full size.

The food is generally small fish, which the bird often
travels immense distances to find, also small oceanic
crustacea and ‘ various.’ Puffins are eaten a good deal
in Iceland. There is a special clause in the Close Time
Act on their behalf, prohibiting the use of nets and
cuns for taking them; the reason being that the young
birds flock together, and can be driven into nets
wholesale. At one time they got quite scarce in the
Westmann Islands through these means.

Herra Grondal relates a curious tale (Verzeichnis,
p. 367), how it is possible in August and September to

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Nest of Great Northern Diver

Rjettarvatn, ArnarvatnsheiSi.

BIRDS OF ICELAND 133

draw a young Puffin out of a burrow with a hook, and
find that a whole string of them is by this means
brought to the day, each one hanging on by his bill
to the tail of the one in front. It sounds rather
Munchausenesque, somehow.

The late W. Proctor had several examples sent to
him of the large Spitzbergen race of Puffin, which has
been named / glacialis, Naum., but the specific dis-
tinctness of which is not acknowledged nowadays. It
is probable that this large race is to be found, round
the northern coasts especially, every winter. (See Jdvs,
1864, p. 132.) Native Iceland Puffins are, in their
turn, rather larger than English ones.

~ Colymbus glacialis, Linn.
GREAT NORTHERN DIVER.

Native names: ‘Himbrimi, related to our ‘Imber-
Goose’ of old literature, and to the Danish,
Swedish, and Norwegian names for this bird;
‘himbrin’ of the Younger Edda; but the ety-
mology of this name, though variously explained,
seems quite obscure. ‘ Brusi,’ equally obscure in
derivation ; the word means an earthenware jug,
but it seems probable that the name is rather
borrowed from a demon Brusi of the Orms Th.
Stordlfssonar Saga, on account of the weird laugh
which the bird’s note resembles.

Resident in considerable numbers, Iceland being the
breeding headquarters of this species as far as Europe

134 BIRDS OF ICELAND

is concerned. A pair breeds on the majority of the hill-
tarns and lakes which contain fish—very rarely, two
pairs are to be seen on the same lake. Lives on the
sea during the rest of the year, and feeds exclusively
on fish.

The nest is placed on an islet in a lake, or at the
end of a spit of land projecting from the mainland ;
it hardly amounts to a hollow in the ground, but is
usually garnished with a little dead water-weed or
grass. The two eggs vary from dark brown to deep
olivaceous, more or less spotted with black, and are
34 inches long.

The bird in summer is black above, white below,
with purple and green sheen on the neck, and two
transverse black bars across the black-streaked throat ;
back beautifully marbled with white. Length 30 to
35 inches, wing 13 to 144 inches; the males considerably
the larger, and often, indeed, than one another. Two
shot the same day, which were paying attentions to
the same lady, weighed 103 and 13 lbs. respectively.
Females and young birds in the winter only scale
about 8 lbs.; at this season the black bars on the
neck are lost, and the young birds are very dusky
grey all over, darker on the upper parts.

The diving powers of this species are remarkable,
and also its speed under water; I have seen it traverse
what I feel certain was fully half a mile below the
surface, in an incredibly short space of time. It is
not easy to procure specimens on the water, but it
may be done by taking an individual and rowing after

BIRDS OF ICELAND 135

it persistently, firing at any range the moment it emerges,
and thus exhausting it by making it dive before it has
replenished its reserve of air. Sometimes it gives you
a good overhead chance, as it flies from one lake to
another for feeding purposes.

As well as the characteristic laugh, usually heard
when the bird is on the wing, this Diver utters a
hoarse croak on the water when its nest is approached.

Herra Grondal informed me that Dr. Riemschneider
of Dorpat has reported the Black-throated Diver
(C. arcticus, L.) as seen by him on Myvatn. It isa
pretty abundant breeder on the hill-tarns of Norway,
and not very unlikely, therefore, to occur in Iceland;
but, as it was not shot, and as it very much resembles
the present species, I hardly like to admit it to the
list as yet. It is rather smaller than the Great
Northern (length about 26 inches, wing 11% inches),
and has a light-grey head and hind neck with a black
chin and throat in summer, and no transverse bars on
the latter as in the present species.

—~ Colymbus septentrionalis, Linn.
RED-THROATED DIVER.

Native name: ‘Lomur’ (Loom), dating back to the
Younger Edda; ‘ perri-kraka.’

Resident and pretty common, breeding on many
tarns and most lakes, and passing the winter on the
sea, coming more into the fjords and near the mouths
of rivers than the last species does.

136 BIRDS OF ICELAND

The eggs are placed on the bare ground on the
margin of a lake or on a spit in a marsh or tarn
adjacent to a lake, less commonly on an islet. The
two eges are elliptical, 2? inches long, olive or brown
in colour, spotted with black, chiefly near the larger
end.

The bird is grey-brown above, spotted finely with
white, and white below; the sides of the neck are
of a delicate French grey and the throat chestnut.
Length 23 inches, wing 11 inches; the females rather
smaller. The red throat is lost during the winter, and
young birds at that time have, as well as white throats,
the feathers of the upper parts edged with dirty white.

The food consists of fish, and this bird is a very
expert diver, like the last species, but more inclined
to take wing when pressed than that bird. It utters
on the wing a harsh note between a bark and a laugh,
and often flies about, vociferating, on the approach of
a storm. Yet the Icelanders used to call it perri-
kradka=‘dry (weather) crow, while our forefathers
called it ‘ Rain-goose’!

-- Podicipes griseigena (Bodd.).
RED-NECKED GREBE.

Native name: ‘Sefond’ (partim) =‘ Reed-duck.’

Herra Grindal records one occurrence of the Red-
necked Grebe (Skirsla, p. 52); it was shot at Keflavik
in December 1885, a male in winter dress, and no
doubt, though he does not add this information, on

BIRDS OF ICELAND 137

the sea. It is not an unlikely species to occur in
winter, at which time of the year it is marine in its
habits, and a great wanderer, not very uncommon off
the British coasts. It breeds abundantly in Southern
Scandinavia, up to the head of the Gulf of Bothnia,
and in Russia up to Archangel. It is larger than the
Sclavonian Grebe, adults measuring 16! inches in
length, and 7 inches in the wing. In summer dress
it is hardly likely to occur in Iceland; in winter
plumage it is brown above and silvery below, old
birds nearly always retaining some traces of the red
throat of summer dress. Even in summer it has no
prominent ear-tufts, like most Grebes, but a black
crown bordered with white, and a conspicuous light
grey patch on the chin and sides of face, and, of course,
a chestnut-red neck.

~~ Podicipes auritus (Linn.).
SCLAVONIAN OR HORNED GREBE
(7 conmutus, Gis):

Native nanes: ‘Sefond (partim), ‘Floaskitur,’ ‘ F100-
skitur’; the last two have reference to ‘flow’ and
‘flood,’ z.e. marsh and pool, and are hardly ever
used.

A summer visitor in considerable numbers to the
north and west, less abundantly elsewhere. I cannot
ascertain if any remain for the winter; it is not
unlikely that some may do so in the sea round the
southern coasts.

138 BIRDS OF ICELAND

The nest is a loose structure of weeds, etc. (myrio-
phyllum being a favourite material), floating amongst
sedges and sciurpus, to which it is attached, at the
margin of a lake or tarn. The eggs, two to four in
number, are bluish white when fresh, but soon get
permanently stained by dirty feet and by the wet
decayed weed with which they are frequently covered
up. A storm of wind often destroys numbers of them,
by upsetting them from the nest; one day we gathered
a great quantity from the bottom of a lake, where they
had been deposited by the action of the waves, and
many subsequently spht by the action of the water.
The eggs vary in lenéth from 14 inches to 1 inches.

The bird is dark brown above, silvery grey below;
neck, breast, and sides chestnut; a tuft of elongated
chestnut feathers on the sides of the head forming a
sort of crest (this, and the chestnut colour generally, is
mostly lost in winter dress). Bull stoutish and straight.
Length 134 inches, wing 54 inches; young birds a good
deal smaller. The secondary quills of the wing are
chiefly white in this bird, except the three outer ones
next the primaries, which, like the latter, are dusky.

Food, small fish, and any small aquatic creatures. I
have found water-snails amongst the swallowed food in
Iceland.

BIRDS OF ICELAND 139

+ |Podicipes nigricollis (Brehm).
BLACK-NECKED OR EARED GREBE.

Native names: ‘Sefond’ (partim), and, according to
Gréndal, ‘ Florgod1’ and ‘ Fléra.’

There has been grievous confusion between this bird
and the last, owing to the use of P. auritus by Gmelin,
Latham, etc., as a name for this bird, it having pre-
viously been given by Linnzeus to the Sclavonian. I
cannot satisfy myself that this species really occurs in
Iceland, which, indeed, it is not likely to do, as its range
in Europe is southern, and the centre of it nearer to the
Mediterranean than the North Atlantic. I have seen
hundreds of Sclavonian Grebes in Iceland, but though
I habitually examine with glasses every Grebe I meet
in that country, I have never been able to detect one
of the present species. Faber described it, however, as
common in the north and west, especially at Myvatn
(where there are numbers of the Sclavonian), and every
one, almost, has followed his lead. Young Sclavonians
are very much smaller than adults, and this has, I
think, been a factor in the confusion. I do not assert
that P. nigricollis does not occur, but only that I can
find no satisfactory proof of it doing so. It is a smaller
bird (leneth 12 inches, wing 5 inches), the head and
neck in summer are black, with a small tuft of golden-
red feathers behind the eye; the flanks are dull chest-
nut; the secondaries are entirely white, and there is
a good deal of this colour on the three or four inner-

140 BIRDS OF ICELAND

most primaries. The bill also is slender, shghtly
turned upwards, and this mark will be visible a long
way off. |

— Fulmarus glacialis (Linn.). Funmar.

Native names: ‘Fyll, ‘Fill, ‘Fylungr, ‘¥Fyliner,’
‘Fylungi.’ It should be spelt ‘fy-’, not ‘fi-’, as it is
apparently from ‘full’=‘lazy,’ and the termina-
tions ‘uner,’ etc., probably=‘young.’ The name
‘Fulmar’ is also used, and occurs in the Hallfredar
Saga.

Resident and abundant all round the coasts, breeding
in colonies here and there, as in the Vestmannaeyjar
and at Grimsey, etc. Its stiff and ungraceful, but
apparently almost effortless flight is a common, and
sometimes the only, object visible from the steamers
to and from Iceland.

The single ege is laid on a cliff-ledge, or a turf area
in the middle of a cliff; it 1s white (to begin with),
rough in texture, with a persistent musky smell, and
variable in size—my own specimens (from Grimsey)
vary from 2? inches to nearly 34 inches in length.

The Fulmar is silvery white, with grey mantle and
tail, and sooty flight-feathers; bill yellow, with dark
nostril-tubes along its upper ridge. Length 19 inches,
wing 124 inches. Flight stiff, by which the bird may
be distinguished from a gull a mile off, or more.

Occasionally one of the ‘dark form’ of Fulmar may
be seen; it is of a dusky grey all over, and Professor

BIRDS OF ICELAND 141

Newton states that on Grimsey it is known as the
‘Smidur’ (Blacksmith). It seems very exceptional in
Iceland, however, in summer, and I have only noticed
two or three. In considering this phenomenon, it
should be borne in mind that immature Fulmars are
duskier than adults.

+ Puffinus major, Faber.
GREATER SHEARWATER.

Native names: ‘Skrofa,’ ‘Stora Skrofa.’

A rare vagrant, extending its wanderings to the
North Atlantic, even as far as Greenland, where it was
reported by Reinhardt (but without sufficient evidence)
to breed. Its breeding-grounds are somewhat of a
mystery, and it is more than doubtful if it breeds in
the Northern Hemisphere at all. First recorded from
Iceland by Faber (Prodromus, pp. 56-57), and no one
appears to have seen it since. It occurs oftener on
the American side.

The bird is brown above, darker on the crown, and
paler on the back of the neck; feathers of the mantle
' and tail-coverts with whitish tips; tail and wing quills
nearly black; underparts white with a dusky middle
to the abdomen. Length 18} inches, wing about
13 inches.

142 BIRDS OF ICELAND

+-[Puffinus griseus (Gmel.).
Sooty SHEARWATER.

Native name: ‘Skrofa,’ no doubt.

I am responsible for the appearance of this bird
in the Iceland list, having seen from the deck of the
Thyra (D.M.S.) on July 25, 1894, about sixty miles
south-east of Eskifjordr, a bird I could put down as
nothing else. It flew, or glided, round the ship all
the morning, several times within a few yards of where
I leant on the taffrail watching it, and once or twice
near enough, I believe, for me to have caught it with a
butterfly net. I put it down as about a foot long (its
head being then drawn in on the shoulders in flight),
and about two in expanse of wing. Cclour sooty black
all over; bill long, slender, and much hooked at the
tip. This is, in reality, rather an under-estimate of
the size of the Sooty Shearwater, which is 17 inches
long (extended), and has a wing of about 13 inches.
A few days later I saw another in the Axarfjorér
(north-east), and an observant fellow-passenger, to
whom I pointed it out, assured me afterwards that
he had seen another a few days later still, on the west
coast, from the same ship.

It is not unlikely to occur as a rare straggler, as ©
it has been noticed in the Faeroes, and is not un-
common on the North American fishing-banks. My
surmise (Zodlogist, 1895, p. 24) that it might possibly
breed in Iceland is, however, an unjustifiable one, as

BIRDS OF ICELAND 143

the breeding-grounds of this species, as far as they are
known, are in the Southern Hemisphere (ey. the
Chatham Isles, off the east coast of New Zealand).
The fishermen off Iceland should be induced to collect
specimens of the various ‘Scrofas,’ as definite informa-
tion upon them is much wanted. |

> Puffinus anglorum (Ray).
MANX SHEARWATER.

Native name: ‘ Litla Skrofa” The meaning of this
name is obscure; ‘skrof’ means ‘loose ice.’

tesident, breeding in the Vestmannaeyjar in some
numbers, and probably in smaller colonies on the west
and north coasts also. It excavates a burrow in the
turf, and lines the far end of it with grass, on which it
deposits a single white egg nearly 24 inches long.
It chooses the turf of a small sea island, or the level
patches which are found here and there on the face of
cliffs, for nidification.

The bird has the crown, back of the neck, and upper
parts of a sooty brown, underparts white, with dusky
scribblings on the sides of the neck and breast. Length
15 inches, wing 94 inches. It feeds on fish, and any-
thing small it can catch, or find dead, on the surface of
the sea.

144 BIRDS OF ICELAND

+- [Cymochorea leucorrhoa (Vieill.).
FORK-TAILED PETREL.

A somewhat larger bird than the following, with a
longer bill and forked tail, which has been reported
from Iceland (Verzeichniss, p. 370; also, Skyrsla, p. 46).
It has occurred in Greenland, and is more abundant on
the west side of the Atlantic. The general coloration
is the same as that of the Storm Petrel, and the length
is 8 inches, wing 6 inches. |

+ Procellaria pelagica, Linn. SrormM PETREL.

Native name: ‘ Drudi’ (?)

Very plentiful all round the coasts, especially in the
south, but is not known, so far, to breed in Iceland,
though it breeds abundantly in the Faeroes, whence
the late Sysselmand Miiller gave me a number of eggs.
I think it probable that it may be found to breed in
Iceland. Its nest should be looked for in stone heaps,
and under boulders and in cracks of rocks—occasion-
ally it makes a burrow for itself in the turf—and
generally collects a little dead grass for lining. Small
islands are a very favourite breeding-place. The single
evo is white, sometimes faintly spotted, or even zoned,
with light red, and about 14 inches long. Storm
Petrels are late breeders, and eggs are hardly likely to
be found in Iceland till quite the end of June.

The bird distantly suggests a House Martin when on
the wing, and is sooty-black all over, including the bill

BIRDS OF ICELAND 145

and feet, with a white patch over the tail, and sug-
gestions of white margins to the wing-coverts. Leneth
6 inches, wine 44 inches. Tail not forked at the end.
Grondal records that a specimen was picked up in a
meadow at Uthlo in the south-east, some eight to ten
geographical miles inland, in June 1885, and that he
obtained the skin. The Storm Petrel feeds on small
crustacea, mollusca, and any marine animal matter
which it can manage to swallow, and often, as is well
known, follows ships.

+. [Diomedea (melanophrys, Boie).

Herra Groéndal (Verzeichniss, p. 369) mentions an
Albatross, which he designates as D. chlororhynchus,
Temm., as being shot on the Vestmannaeyjar forty
years back, which would bring the date to about 1845 ;
he adds that the skeleton is now in the Zodlogical
Museum at Copenhagen. In Skyrsla he repeats this
statement, with the exception that he corrects the
name to D. culminata, Gould.

In the Zodlogist (1894, p. 337) will be found an
account by Mr. Harvie-Brown of a specimen of D.
melanophrys, of Boie, shot on the Faeroes and now
at Copenhagen. Several specimens of this species
have been obtained at different times in the North
Atlantic, and I think it best to put the Iceland bird
down, provisionally, as being of the same species. As
is well known, the albatrosses are inhabitants of warm,
southern oceans, but this species seems to stray oftener
than others to our latitudes. |

Ix

‘AFLOGAKRAGI, 103.
Alca impennis, 125.
torda, 124.

‘Alpt, or ‘Alft, 47.

Anas ‘ borealis,’ 72.
boscas, 51, 55.
strepera, 52.

Anser albifrons, 42.
brachyrhynchus, 44.
cinereus, 40, 43, 45.
——— (segetum), 44.
Anthus pratensis, 13.
Ari, 28.

Asio accipitrinus, 26.
otus, 25.

Assa, 28.

Auk, Great, 125.

Little, 130.
Audnutitlingur, 4, 16, 18.

BAJARSVALA, 1d.
Bernicla brenta, 46.
leucopsis, 46.
Blackbird, 3.
Blaikollsénd, 51.
Blesénd, 81.
Blikakongur, 73.
Brandgas, 50.
Brimdifa, or Brimind, 68.
Brusi, 133.
Bunting, Lapp, 20.
—— Snow, 18.

Charadrius pluvialis, 83.

Chelidon urbica, 15.
146

IN Dix

Clangula glaucion, 62.
| islandica, 63, 64.
Colymbus (arcticus), 135.
glacialis, 133.
septentrionalis, 135.
| Coot, 81, 85.
Cormorant, 35, 36, 38.
Corvus corax, 21.
cornix, 24.
corone, 23.
— frugilequs, 21, 24.
—— (leucopheus), 23.
—— monedula, 21.
Cosmonetta histrionica, 68.
Crow, Carrion, 23, 24.
Hooded, 24.
(Cuckoo), 13, 15, 94.
Curlew, 39, 106.
Cygnus (bewicki), 50.
musicus, 47.
Cymochorea leucorrhoa, 144.

Dafila acuta, 54.

Dilaskarfur, 35.

Diomedea (melanophrys), 145.

(Dotterel), 87.

Drunnefja, or Drumbnefja, 124.

Drudi, 144.

Dik-ind, or Duggind, 60, 74 (in
error).

Dunlin, 96.

Dvergfalki, 33.

Eacte, SEA, 28, 114.

INDEX

Eider, 66, 70, 73, 74.
—— King, 71, 73.
(Hudromias morinellus), 87.

‘ FAEREYJA-HRAFN,’ 23.
Falco esalon, 33.

—— candicans, 29.
islandus, 30.
Falcon, Greenland, 29.
Iceland, 30.

Falki, 29, 30.
Fléaskitur, or Flodskitur, 137.
(Flérgodi, or Flora), 139.
Fovella, or fdella, 66.
Fratercula arctica, 132.
(glacialis), 133.
Friggjar-ellda, 12.
Fulica atra, 81.
Fuligala (ferina), 58.
marila, 60.

—— (nyroca), 59.
Fulmar, 140.

Fulmarus glacialis, 140.

Fyll, fill, fylungr, fflingr, etc., 140.

GADWALL, 52.

Gallinago celestis, 94.

—— (major), 95.

Gallinula chloropus, 80.
Gannet, 35, 37.

Garefowl, 125.

Garganey, 56.

(Gaukr), 16, 94.

Geir-fugl, 125,

Godwit, Black-tailed, 105.
Goldeneye, Common, 62, 64, 65.
Barrow’s, 63, 64.
Goosander, 75, 76, 77.
Goose, Barnacle, 46, 47.
(Bean), 44.

—— Brent, 46.

Grey Lag-, 40, 43, 45.
— Pink-footed, 44.

—- White-fronted, 41, 42.

| Gradilodur, 4.

Gragaes, or Grigas, 40, 42, 44.

Gra-6nd, 51, 52, 57.

Litla, 52, 55.

Grasond, or Grafind, 54.

‘ Graprostur,’ 3.

Grebe (Black-necked, or Eared), 139.

Red-necked, 136.

—— Sclavonian, or Horned, 137,
139.

Groenhofdi, 51.

Grouse (Red), 77.

— (Willow), 78.

Guillemot, Black, 130.

Briinnich’s, 129.

Common, 127, 129.

—— ‘ Ringed,’ 128.

Gull, Common, 111.

— Glaucous, 113, 115.

— Greater Black-backed,
114.

112,

— Iceland, 115.

— Ivory, 117.

Kittiwake, 102, 112, 116.
Gulond, 72, 75.

Gyrfalcons, 29-33.

Hematopus ostralegus, 88.
Haftskumur, 118.

Hafsula, 37.

Haftirdill, or Haftyrdill, 130.
Hakarla-, or Hakalla-skumur, 118.
Haliaétus albicilla, 28.

Harelda glacialis, 66.

| Havella, 66.

Hegri, 38.

| Heidarloepa, 96.

Heidloéa, heilda, or heild, 83.

| Helsingi, 42, 46.
| Heron, 38.

Himbrimi, 133.
Hirundo rustica, 14.
Hnaukr, or Hnokr, 36.

148 BIRDS

Hnuplungr, 35.

Hrafn, 21,

Hrafnsond, 74.

Hringvia, 127.

Hrossa-gaukr, 94.

Hrota, or Hrétgaes, 46.

Husond, 51, 62, 64.

Hvitifalki, 29.

Hvitmafur, or Hvitfugl, 113, 115,
V7.

Ipis, Glossy, 39.
Isakraka, 85.
(Ismafur), 117.

JACKDAW, 21.
Jadrakan (and variants), 105.

KAFLA-BRINGUR, 112.
Kattugla, 26.
Keldu-svin, 79.

Kilond, 51.

Kittiwake, 102, 112, 116.
Kjoi, 119, 121, 123.
Klumba, or Klumbunefja, 124.
Knot, 98, 100.

Kragi, 103.

Kraka, 24.

Krakaber, 22.

Kria, 109.

Krummi, 21.

Lagopus rupestris, 77.
Langvia, or Langnefja, 127.
Langviu-graond, 54.
Landsvala, 14.

Larus (argentatus), 113.
canus, 111.

—— (fuscus), 113.

— glaucus, 113, 115.
-—— leucopterus, 113, 115.
—— marinus, 112.
Limosa belgica, 105.

OF ICELAND

(Linnet, Common), 3.
Linota (cannabina), 3, 18.
eaxtlipes, 17.

—— hornemanni, 17.
linaria, 16.
(rufescens), 18.

Léa, or 16, 83.

Lomur, 135.

Loupraell, 96.

Lundi, 132.

Machetes pugnax, 103.

Mareca penelope, 57.

Margaes, 46.

Marialla, Mariu-erla, Mariur-titlin-
gur, 12.

Merganser, 76.

Mergus castor, 75.

serrator, 76.

Merlin, 6, 13, 33.

Motacilla alba, 12.

Musarbrodir (Musarrindill), 5.

Mfri-snipa (and variants), 94.

NATTUGLA, 26.
Numenius arquata, 106.
— (borealis), 109.
— hudsonicus, 109.
pheopus, 107.

(ORIOLE), 14.
(Oriolus galbula), 14.
Owl, Long-eared, 25.
——. Short-eared, 26.
—— Snowy, 26.
Oyster-catcher, 88.
‘Odinshani, 92.

Pagophila eburnea, 117.
(Pelecanus), 36.
(Pelican), 37.

Petrel, Fork-tailed, 144.
Storm, 144.

INDEX

Phalacrocorax carbo, 35.
graculus, 36.
Phalarope, Grey, 89.
—— Red-necked, 9, 92.
Phalaropus fulicarius, 89.
hyperboreus, 92.
Pintail, 54, 61.

Pipit, Meadow, 6, 13, 34.
Plegadis falcinellus, 39.
Plover, Grey, 44, 85.

—— (Lesser Ringed), 82.
Ringed, 81, 103.
Podicipes auritus (cornutus), 137.
griseigena, 136.
(negricollis), 139.
Ptarmigan, Rock, 31, 77.
Puttin, V31, 132.
— (Northern), 133.
Puffinus anglorum, 143.
— (griseus), 142.
major, 141.

Querquedula circia, 56.
CreCeG:, BD:

RAIL, WATER, 79.
Rallus aquaticus, 79.
Raudbrystingur, 100.
Rauddufu-Gnd, 57.
Raudhofoi gra-ind, 57, 58.
Raven, 21, 78, 108.
Redstart (Black), 5.
(Common), 5.
Redwing, 1, 8.

Redpoll, Greenland, 17.
Mealy, 4, 16.
Rindill, 5.

Rissa tridactyla, 116.
Ritsa, or Rita, 116.
Rjiipa, or Rjup-karri, 77.
Rook, 21, 23.

Ruff, 103.

Golden, 83, 85, 90, 108, 122.

| (Ruticilla titys), 5.

SANDERLA, 10].
Sanderling, 101.

| Sand-lda, 81.

Sandpiper, Curlew, 98.
Dunlin, 96, 100.
—— (Bonaparte’s), 96.
—- Purple, 98.
Scaup, 28, 59, 60.

| Scoter, 74.

(Velvet), 75.

Sefind, 136, 137, (139).
Sendlingur, or Selningur, 98.
Shag, 36, 38.

Sheld-Duck, 50.

Ruddy, 51.

(Shoveller Duck), 53.
Sjohena, 80.

Skarfur, 35.

Skegla, 116.

Skégarpréstur, 1.

Skrofa, 141, 142, 143.
Skua, Buffon’s, 123.

Great, 118.
Pomatorhine, 119, 122.

149

-— Richardson’s, 108, 120, 121,

123.

| Skumur, 118.

Smirill, 33.
Snipe, Common, 94.
(Great), 95.
Snjotithngur, 18, 20.
Snjd-ugla, or Sneeugla, 26.
Somateria mollissima, 70.
spectabilis, 73.
Sdlskrikja, 18, 20.
Sportitlingur, 20.
Stari, or Starri, 20.
Steindelfur, Steindepill,
klappa, 4.

| Stelkur, 104.

_ Stercorarius catarrhactes, 118.

Stein-

150 BIRDS OF ICELAND

Stercorarius crepidatus, 12). Turdus tliacus, 1.
parasiticus, 123. merula, 3.
pomatorhinus, 119. pilaris, 3.

Sterna artica, 110. Turnstone, 86.
Stokkénd, 51.

Straumond, 68. 'UTILEGU-SKARFUR, 35.
Strepsilas interpres, 86. Uria bruennichi, 129.
(Strix aluco), 26. grylle, 1380.
Sturnus vulgaris, 20. —— (mandtt), 60.
Stuttnefja, 129. troile, 127.

Sula bassana, 37. Urt, or Urtind, 55, 57.
Sundhani, 92. é
Svanur, 47. ee 30. mr:
Svart-bakur, 112. Vanellus vulgaris, 895.
Swallow id Vatnsheena, 80.
Swan (Bewick’s), 50. vee 30.
Whooper, 47. Veidi-bjalla, 112.
Vepja, 85.

Tadorna casarca, 51.
cornuta, 50.
Taumond, 56.

Teal, 55, 56, 57.
Tern, Arctic, 109, 116.
(Common), 111.
Tildra, 86.

Tjaldur, 88.
Topp-skarfur, 36.
Toppond, Litla, 76.
—— Stora, 75.
Totanus calidris, 104.
Tria-ugla, 25.

WaaertalL (Pied), 12.

White, 12.

Waterhen, 80.

Wheatear, 4.

Whimbrel, 22, 102, 106, 107, 122.
: American, 109.

(Whin Chat), 12.

Wigeon, 57, 61.

Wild Duck, Common, 51, 58, 54.

Wren, Northern, 5.

MH gialitis curonica, 82.
hiaticula, 81.

Tringa alpina, 96. AiWar, or AiSar-fugl, 70.
—— canutus, 100. AB¥ar-bliki, and Aivarkolla, 70.
—— (fuscicollis), 96. _ ABar-kongur, 73.
— (schinzii), 96. |
striata, 98. | PERNA, 109.
subarquata, 98. perri-kraka, 135.
Troglodytes (Huropeus), 11. porshani, 89.
borealis, 5. pufu-titlingur, 13.

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Sketch-books. One Volume. Small 4to. Price 2ls. net.

‘If Captain Marryat, instead of devoting his time after leaving the service to writing
novels, had wandered off to a desolate island and turned wild-fowler and ornithologist,

he might well have written such a book as that which the literary executors of the late
H. D. Graham have issued under the sober title of The Birds of Iona and Mull.’—Spectator.

4. A VERTEBRATE FAUNA OF THE ORKNEY ISLANDS. By T. E.
Buck ey, B.A., F.Z.S., and J. A. Harvir-Browy, F.R.S.E., F.Z.S.
One Volume. Small 4to. Illustrated with Photogravure Plates
trom Drawings by J. G. Mituats, as well as from Photographs taken
specially for the Book. Price 30s.

5. A VERTEBRATE FAUNA OF ARGYLL AND THE INNER
HEBRIDES. By J. A. Harvie-Brown and T. E. BucktEy. One
Volume. Small 4to. Price 30s.

6,7. A FAUNA OF THE MORAY BASIN. By J. A. Harvir-Brown
and T. E. BuckLtEy. Two Volumes. Small 4to. Price 60s.

8. A VERTEBRATE FAUNA OF SHETLAND. By T. E. Buck.ey
and A. H. Evans. Small 4to. Price 30s.

to

EDINBURGH: DAVID DOUGLAS, 10 CASTLE STREET.

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