224 



HARDWICKK S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



disease. Of these predisposing causes, heredity is 

 certainly the most marlced. Leprosy is not congenital, 

 be it noted ; that is to say, it does not occur in the 

 new-born child (in fact, I believe it is unknown 

 before puberty) ; but the presence of the disease in 

 the parent has so modified the organisation of the 

 offspring as to make it peculiarly susceptible to the 

 disease. Living in the midst of filth and general 

 unhygienic surroundings, appears to be another of 

 these predisposing causes. 



Arthur W. Harrison. 

 Westminster Hospital. 



THE MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S SUN. 

 By THE Author of "Insect Variety." 



THE captain of the Henrik Wegeland, who 

 had been pacing the deck, suddenly stopped 

 short opposite where I was sitting upon the taffrail. 

 "You are mistaken," he continued, "in supposing 

 that the climate on our coasts is Arctic or perceptibly 

 colder than that of the western seaboard of Scotland. 

 True it is that snow covers the hills in November and 

 April, and when the days grow bright and lengthen, 

 then we find the cold to strengthen ; but no surface 

 ice blocks the channel south of Tromso, and our 

 passage in winter, inside the islets, is mainly ren- 

 dered perilous on account of the gloom and sudden 

 extinguishing of the play of the northern lights. I 

 have heard it said that the glares of the Hecla may 

 be seen in passing — it lies behind us in the latitude of 

 Trondjhem — but I much doubt it." He consulted his 

 watch and added, " you see things look very different 

 now it is midnight." I looked up in the direction 

 of the north, and the sun remained above the horizon, 

 glowing with a crimson blur in the sea fog, and en- 

 livening the deck, and green and starry ripples with 

 an orange lustre ; and as it from time to time shot 

 behind the passing skerries, their jagged peaks kindled 

 into hues of rose and purple. We were beholding 

 the midsummer night's sun, the crown of glory that 

 wheels around the head of the old skald who bathes 

 his feet in the Baltic. 



Softly the steamer stole onwards, while time slum- 

 bered on the piston strokes, until, gently turning into 

 a placid fishing cove, we paused opposite a Swiss 

 hamlet perched upon a grassy bank — the village of 

 Bodo. " You had better pay a couple of sovereigns 

 and continue with us on to Tromso," resumed the 

 captain, thumping the communicating rod. ' ' Tromso 

 is a pretty place." Verily, for matter of that, I had 

 long since sent my heart on before me to Spitzbergen 

 and Novaia Zemlia to be there enshrined in a casket 

 of frost-work, but there reigned so much enchantment 

 in the seclusion and impurpled haze of the radiant 

 light, that I unwittingly entered the drowsily splashing 

 furry-boat and leaped upon the quay. The sun, as of 

 yore, had driven his chariot behind a mountainous 

 rock, and the golden flash that but lately had slept 



upon window, sign-board, and balcony, was replaced 

 by a pale opal lustre, in which the fisher-lads and shop 

 lassies moved about as glorified spirits and demigods. 

 Must I say that it was but the flaunt and mirage of 

 the desert, or feed on sun-stirred fancy that wanders 

 in paths unknown ? 



The next morning I awoke in a highland village 

 composed of wooden houses, not marble and gilded 

 palaces, with here and there a peat roof mottled over 

 with a savage snuff and peppermint of seeding-grass 

 and feverfew ; and, in going down the street, I 

 encountered a stray Laplander wearing his mitre cap 

 and Chinawoman's slippers, who, having left the rein- 

 deer on the wild, remained like Alice in Wonderland. 

 I concluded that he must have come across the moun- 

 tains laden with Arctic spoils for the approaching 

 exhibition. 



The midnight sun is seen at Bodo rather under 

 difficulties : you have, in the first place, to await the 

 advent of one of those anticyclonic days when the 

 vault above at gelid sundown retains its crystalline 

 clearness, and no misty wraps gather at the base or 

 crests of the heights around ; and you then have the 

 option of mounting the church spire or making the 

 ascent of the mountain that hems in the valley ; what 

 time the village thinks of rest, good folks in England 

 are asleep and dreaming. Such an evening arrived 

 the 5th of July of the present year, when a quiet 

 stillness lured me forth, and a heavy fragrance-laden 

 atmosphere enticed me to wander on. The sun-power 

 that nerved my frame had been at work in the fairy 

 world. As I went along the meadows, hastily drawn 

 up by the revolving light, the dandelion stalks stand- 

 ing two feet, the grass definitely higher, and the cow- 

 parsley clumps overtopping like guards in battalion, 

 enunciated for my solution a problem of tapes cut to 

 a length ; although I must with fairness state that on 

 the rich, tranquil banks of the Nidaros, where I left 

 the little maidens scrambling to pick the carmine 

 rosebuds, this individuality was more conspicuous. 

 In these meadows where the nettle is unknown, 

 geometrical moths were flitting everywhere in the 

 bright sunlight, which revealed their occult wing- 

 patterns to human eyes, and among them went the 

 straw-coloured Cidaria pyraliata, that the English 

 school-boy nets in our shrubberies at dew-fall, but 

 which is here abroad, sipping the pride of the hay- 

 field, throughout the blaze of noon.*' Let the classifier, 

 who is pondering over the problem of diurnal plumes 

 and nocturnal feelers, consider how the witchery of 

 the valley's twilight and the garish crown of northern 

 light, has been perplexing his moth genera, and let 

 him recognise this place of development with a saving 

 clause : all of this group fly by night, save one that, 

 like the Gamma, has learnt to love the sunlight. 



* In company with Scapula decrepitalis and Pachynobia 

 carnea: at seven in the evening Laretitia mtmitata and didy- 

 jnata, Melanipfie moiitanata, Cidaria populata, Anaitis palu- 

 data, Euphisteria heparata and Evimelesia albulata, are 

 already enlivening the damp sunny grass. 



