50 TRAVELS OF A NATURALIST 



myself), and one or two Common Gulls (Ole says they 

 breed here). 



We tried on ' Skier,' or native snow skates, and though 

 our efforts were rather ludicrous to the natives, we 

 believed we should find little difficulty in learning to use 

 them. Ole says he will take them up some day to the 

 hill, so that we may have a try with them on the snow. 



An English lady and her courier (a Swiss) are staying 

 here in the rooms over ours. They came yesterday and 

 remain for some days. The courier cannot speak Norsk, 

 but the lady herself can, and it rather puzzles us to make 

 out what use the fellow can be. 



The sun sets to-night — as far as we could judge — behind 

 the hills to the N.N.W., by compass. 



In the evening we talked with Ole about legends, 

 superstitions, etc., and he told us the story of ' Why the 

 Bear has a stumpy tail,' with great gusto {see Dasent). 



He also says that the superstition about seeing the 

 Wheatear for the first time on a stone or on grass prevails 

 here as in Scotland, which is curious, but the saying is 

 more generally applied to the Wagtail. 



We saw a Stoat in front of the house. 



June 10. 



Saturday, the 10th of June, a warm day. Alston stayed 

 in the house to try to get rid of the nasty cold which is 

 still hanging about him. He occupied himself with filling 

 cartridges, working at sketches, and calculating expenses 

 — one welcome result being that we find we shall be able 

 to stay longer than we expected, which is meget godt. 



He shot the Stoat with the stick-gun. It was a very 

 small female, its measurements being : head, 1*90 ; head 

 and body, 8"2o ; tail, 2-80 ; and ear, 'bO. The tip of the 

 tail was dark brown, not black. 



I had a long day with Ole. We went up the hill again 



