VI INTRODUCTION. 



Finns is generally clear and unmistakable. It needs, Lowever, 

 a fine ear to distinguish between SirJckajarm (Grasshopper- 

 lake) and SdrJiijdrvi (Roach-lake), and both occur not un- 

 frequently at no great distance from Muonioniska, though 

 sufficiently far from one another. But matters were made 

 worse when the good Knoblock wrote down a name, as he 

 occasionally did, in an oblique case instead of the nominative 

 (§ 2150), for be it remembered that Finnish nouns have fifteen 

 cases, so that plenty of traps beset the unwary grammarian, and 

 I feel sure that I must have fallen into some, while a generous 

 freedom in the fashion of spelling some Finnish words lays 

 snares in which one is apt to get entangled. 



I have to regret the death of ]\Ir. Balcomb, who executed 

 the egg-plates for this work, and it is only due to him to state 

 that each of his figures is an unmistakable portrait of the speci- 

 men drawn. Equally great is my regret at the loss of Mr. Jury, 

 who so admirably lithographed the other plates for the first 

 part of this volume. Two of the landscapes in the second part 

 have been put on stone by Mr. M. 11 an hart with equal 

 fidelity to the original drawings, while the other two have been 

 copied by Mr. Edwin Wilson from the beautiful })lates in the 

 * Lappland ' of the late Captain Pettersson. The greatest 

 loss of all, however, is that of my friend Mr. Wolf, whose 

 supreme excellence as a zoological artist was only equalled 

 by his readiness to oblige anyone who appreciated good 

 work. 



The frontispiece of this volume is from a photograph taken 

 in the winter of 1858-9, by the late Mr. Edward Joseph 



