THE MAGAZINE 



OF 



NATURAL HISTORY, 



JUNE, 1835, 



ORIGINAL COMMUNICATIONS. 



Art. I. Notes of a Natural History Tour in Nortvay. By Ed- 

 ward Forbes, Esq. [Continued from p. 251.] 



We spent a week at Bergen. In Norway it is a proverb, 

 that " it always rains at Bergen ;" and we found it a true 

 saying. The town is built of wood, and has a very handsome 

 appearance; many of the houses are very fantastic in their 

 decorations. The national costumes of the Norse peasantry 

 are seen to perfection on a market or a fair day, each parish 

 and district in Bergenstift having a different dress. The most 

 frequent was a blue jacket without a collar, and bordered with 

 red, short full trowsers to match, and a small scarlet skullcap, 

 barely covering the head. The scarlet of these caps (in some 

 parishes they wear jackets of the same hue) is procured from 

 the roots of the Galium verum by the peasants themselves. 

 It is a very bright and beautiful colour, and apparently stands 

 well. Bergen, like most of the Norwegian towns, is at the 

 head of a fiord studded with islands. The mountains, at the 

 immediate base of which the town is situated, are about 2000 ft. 

 above the sea level. Their sides are silvery with the beautiful 

 foliage of the Alchemilla alpina; and iftjbus Chamaemorus, 

 ^rctostaphylos (Arbutus) alpina, Oxycoccus palustris, Fac- 

 cinium Fitis idae'a, Lycopodium *Selago, Andromeda po\n- 

 folia, and Carex leucogldchin, abound towards their summits. 

 £edum anglicum is very plentiful on the walls and rocks about 

 the town. In a salt-marsh I found Cingula ulvae, Merita 

 littoralis, Trochus cinerarius, Mya arenaria, Cardium edule, 

 -Mytilus edulis, and fragments of Venus exoleta. 



Amongst my Bergen treasures I especially value a quantity 

 of shell sand, which I found in a spitting-box in my lodgings. 

 As yet I have only examined a small portion ; but I expect 



Vol. VIII.— No. 50. y 



