426 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1941 



j5g. 3). When Rhodymenia palmata grows attached to the stipes of 

 LamiTiaria cloiistonii^ the sheep nibble at the Rhodymenia without 

 touching its support. Laminaria cloustonii (pi. 8, fig. 2) sometimes 

 grows in such abundance that it covers the other seaweeds. The 

 cows raise it up on their muzzles and hunt below it for the seaweeds 

 that they like. Only the fronds of Laminaria fiexicaulis are eaten. 

 The peasants gather it from the shore in large quantities to give to 

 the beasts in the stable, and as it is considered a very healthy food it is 

 given to them fresh from the beach without being washed in water. 

 On the whole coast of Iceland in the winter, and even in certain places 

 in the summer, thousands of sheep and other cattle wander freely and 

 eat the seaweed even when there is grass available. In certain local- 

 ities they are not given additional food, although in places some addi- 

 tional grain is supplied to them. On the coasts, as a rule, the cows 

 do not go to pasture, but are given Rhodymenia pahnata (pi. 5, fig. 3) 

 and Alaria esculenta (pi. 6, fig. 3) in the stable since their milk does 

 not absorb any taste from it. Their meat does not show any ill effects 

 from the seaweed diet, although it is said that at Langarnes, where 

 only seaweed is fed the animals, the lambs have weaker legs than those 

 in the interior of the island. 



Sometimes the Icelanders gather seaweeds to prepare as supple- 

 mental fodder. They wash it in water to remove the adliering sand, 

 then bury it in deep ditches where it is pressed down under a layer of 

 stones and thus compressed until it forms a firm mass which is cut 

 into pieces with axes and fed to the animals in the winter. In cer- 

 tain places Alaria is gathered in the autumn, dried in the air after 

 being washed with fresh water, and then packed in the barn alter- 

 nately with layers of hay. The nutritive equivalent between the 

 algae and the hay varies with the quality and digestive ability of 

 the different species of plants and also with the animals. The sheep 

 of the Iceland coast that have been nourished with seaweeds for 

 several generations digest it more easily than the sheep of the interior 

 which have been habituated to eating only hay and grain. The 

 Norwegians often boil the seaweed with fresh water and then feed 

 it to their beasts. There are two factories in Norway where the 

 algae are dried and then broken into pieces, but because of the salts 

 and the iodine present in the seaweeds, it is thought best not to feed 

 them to the cattle in large quantities. De la Pylaie, who lived in 

 1824 on the Island of Sein, wrote that Laminaria leptofoda when it 

 has been acted upon by the rain and the dew loses the olive-green 

 color of the frond and becomes white like a piece of parchment. 

 The cows would go to hunt for it at low tide on the coasts and would 

 have nothing to do with it in its natural state but would eat it with 

 great avidity when it had whitened. 



