HARDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



231 



animal, and gravely dilates on all the delinquencies 

 he and his relatives have perpetrated against the 

 Lapps ; then, at the end of this denunciatory sermon, 

 he puts the culprit to death. It has occasionally 

 happened that the Lapp at the moment of striking 

 the disabling blow, has himself also dropped down, 

 in a swoon caused by over-exertion ; in which case 

 the wolf, though not respited, is saved the extra 

 infliction of a death-sermon, the victor's comrades 

 being sufficiently occupied with his restoration to 

 conscious life. 



" The wolf is not stripped of his skin till all the 

 hunters arrive at the place of his death. Then the 

 slayer, beginning the operation, flays the head ; the 

 second in at the death flays the next ; and so on till 

 it comes to the last, who gets leave to draw the 

 skin from its tail. 



"After the completion of the flaying, the hunters 

 return in the order they held at the end of the chase ; 

 the foremost bearing the skin as a trophy of honour ; 

 and on arriving at home they are entertained with 

 the best." 



In Norway, as appears from Professor Friis's 

 account of a wolf-hunt, the skidstaff of the hunter is 

 not commonly furnished with a spear-head ; and the 

 wolf, as he sits with his back broken by a blow with 

 the staff, is after due denunciation of himself and his 

 forefathers, Anally despatched with the knife which 

 every Lapp and peasant carries suspended from his 

 belt ; or by a ball from the rifle which the Lapp 

 hunter there frequently carries on his back. To 

 strike at the head of the wolf with the skidstaff, says 

 Friis, is of no avail, for the wolf knows how to parry 

 and seize it with his teeth. Yet O. R. Ilederstrom, 

 in the Swedish Sporting-Society's Journal for 1879, 

 states that in Tornelapmark, the most northerly part 

 of Swedish Lapland, an inch-thick skidstaff, without 

 spear, is the only weapon used ; and that a blow or 

 two with it, after it has broken his back, is usually 

 enough to kill a wolf — there a cowardly animal, 

 rarely showing fight in self-defence. But, as Malm, 

 quoted by Dtihen, relates, a slightly wounded wolf 

 will sometimes turn upon his assailant, especially if 

 he chances to stumble ; then a fierce fight ensues, in 

 which however, the Lapp's thick skin coat affords 

 better protection against the wolfs fangs than the 

 wolf's against the Lapp's strong, sharp-pointed 

 knife. 



Outside the boundaries of Lapland wolves are not 

 numerous in Sweden ; nor even within the lower 

 forested tracts those boundaries enclose, except 

 during winter, after some portion of them have 

 followed the reindeer herds thither from the Lapp 

 mountains, which are their proper resort. They 

 infest chiefly the three northernmost provinces of 

 Sweden, Norrbotten, Vesterbotten, and Ostersund, 

 south of which they are rarely found. Ostersund, the 

 most southern of these provinces, includes the wild 

 mountainous tracts of Jemtland and Herjedal, and 



though ranged by a few Lapps along its Norwegian 

 border, has no part of its area nominally included 

 within Lapland proper, yet is apparently far more 

 infested by wolves than Vesterbotten, whose lapp- 

 marks adjoin it to the north. But these, though of 

 great extent, constitute the smaller part of Swedish 

 Lapland ; and it is in the lappmarks of Norrbotten — • 

 Pite, Sule, and especially Tome — that both wolves- 

 and reindeer most numerously abound. Thus in 

 Norrbotten's Ian, and of course chiefly in its three 

 lappmarks, there were, according to the premiums- 

 paid by the State for the destruction of predacious- 

 animals, during the four years of 1S76 to 1879- 

 inclusive, sixty-nine wolves killed ; in Ostersund's, 

 fifty-six ; in Vesterbotten's, sixteen ; and throughout 

 the rest of the kingdom, only six, comprising a total 

 of one hundred and forty-seven. During the five 

 years of 1S81-18S5, the number destroyed through- 

 out all Sweden was one hundred and seventy-one; 

 and during 1 871-187 5, two hundred and twenty- 

 nine ; but during the ten years terminating with 

 1865, no fewer than four hundred and thirty-seven 

 wolves were killed in the province of Norrbotten 

 alone. There also in the course of the same period 

 seven hundred and eighty-seven gluttons, and two 

 hundred and fifty-seven bears were destroyed ; while 

 on the other hand, the number of reindeer slaughtered 

 in the same time and place by such beasts of prey, 

 was stated at about five thousand. 



The part of Norrbotten most exposed to the 

 ravages of wolves is Tornis lappmark, which com- 

 prises the two parishes of Enontekis and Jukkasjarvi,. 

 where, says Herr Hederstrom, the Jagtmaster or chief, 

 ranger of the district, the wolf may be considered to 

 have its especial resort. This wide territory, the- 

 largest of the lappmarks, with an area of 7612 square 

 miles, consists mainly of high, bleak, treeless and 

 comparatively level table-land, ranged over during 

 winter by nomadic Lapps, with their great herds of 

 reindeer, but vacated on the approach of summer 

 by both, who pass over into Norway, and remain 

 there till the autumn, thus reversing the usual custom, 

 of the more southerly Swedish Lapps, who during 

 summer graze their herds on the mountains, and 

 towards winter begin their descent into the forests 

 below, where they remain till spring. In winter 

 therefore, the high lands of Tornis are numerously 

 bespread with the returned herds ; the number of 

 reindeer belonging to it exceeding that of any other 

 lappmark ; its share of the 123,000 which all 

 Norrbotten contained in 1879 being 55,000, although 

 Tornis forms only a fourth part of the entire area of 

 the province's lappmarks; while the total number 

 of reindeer throughout the whole of Swedish. 

 Lapland has been estimated at only 220,800. This, 

 abundance of reindeer during winter in Tornis 

 lappmark is evidently a chief reason why their 

 natural enemies, the wolves, also abound there at 

 that time, for they numerously follow the herds both, 



