Volume 9 - Electric Scotland

62 ANNALS OF SCOTTISH NATURAL HISTORY
islands must always have great interest for every British ornithologist.
The diarists set out on this quest in a very practical fashion. Instead
of travelling northward with the returning birds, they started early
and anticipated the arrival of the subjects of their observation.
Thus, reaching Tromso on the 6th April, they proceeded to
Skibotten on the Lyngen Fjord, and crossed the watershed to
Kilpisjarvi, whence flows the Muonio to the Baltic, arriving at
Muoniovara on the i6th, just before the winter-ways became
their steps to Tromso wherein lay, we think, a mistake,
impassable. Making their headquarters at Muonioniska, the
travellers stayed, "off and on," till the 24th June, then retracing
for a fortnight
longer would have largely increased their results. However,
they were by no means idle, and Mr. Meinertzhagen alone pushed
on to the north-east so far as Peldouoma, over as desolate and as
rough a tract of country as any one would wish, passing, apparently
without knowing it, close to the very spot where, more than forty years
before, the first
Waxwing's nest was found by Wolley's people.
He seems to have been satisfied with the spoils he obtained,
but most of the eggs collected appear to have been bought from the
country-people, and at exorbitant prices.
We wish we could add
that he had increased our knowledge of the fauna of the district he
visited ;
but we are unfortunately unable to accept those species he
names, which have not before been recorded as observed in it the
Moor-hen, the Barn Owl, and the Middle-spotted Woodpecker.
The last rested on the "authority" (save the mark of a man who
!)
brought him some eggs, and may at once be discarded but the
;
other two birds he says he himself saw. Both must have been
familiar to him ;
but in each case we fear he was mistaken even
as young and ardent ornithologists sometimes are. Had he obtained
a specimen of either, it would be a different matter but he was
;
evidently unaware of the fact that neither species, according
to previous information, had ever approached the latitude of
Muonioniska the Barn Owl not by a thousand miles. The same
disregard of their geographical range made him also lend too credulous
an ear to the stories told him of the Pigmy and the Ural Owl
the last having been only once before observed in Lapland. The
bird spoken of by his informant was evidently a Lapp Owl. The
suggestion of the occurrence of Anthus cervinus and Phylloscopus
borealis is
very vague. Both, for what one knows to the contrary,
may inhabit that part of Lapland, but the fact that they do so is
undetermined.
It is
admittedly difficult to decide how a diary like that of Mr.
Meinertzhagen's should be printed, for it was certainly not written
for publication. In the preface we are told that this is intended to
be "an exact copy of the manuscript"; but it
surely has not been
accurately copied, for we cannot bring ourselves to believe that the