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Besides the large Coal-fish fishery, which takes place here 
in the summer, the island has economically speaking, two glories. 
If one lands here on a beautiful spring-like day in June, almost 
the entire surface will be white with the large corolle of the 
cloud-berry (Rubus chamemorus).* And when autumn comes, 
these millions of plants will bear their large yellowish-red berries, 
which can hardly anywhere else reach a more luxuriant develop- 
ment than in favourable years they do here. 
The second glory of the island is its supply of eggs and 
down. This island is the nesting-place of one of the largest 
colonies of Eider Ducks in the country; and as soon as the 
ducks have settled under the small tussocks of ling, or between 
the crevices in the layers of peat, the valuable down is stripped 
(as a rule only once) from each nest; and when the ‘“‘down-har- 
vest,” is complete, the proceeds fill an entire room up to a man’s 
height. As the island belongs to the jurisdiction of the chief 
magistratet of Finmarken, the lessee, who is its only inhabi- 
tant, must deliver annually two caskst of cloud-berries and 48 
kilograms § of thoroughly-cleaned down, out of the produce. 
The island is therefore strictly watched during the breeding- 
season, for there are many poachers among the more vagrant 
fishermen and Laplanders, and no one jis allowed to set foot on 
it before the young Eiders have taken to the sea. 
Numberless gulls, belonging both to the black-backed (Larus 
mavinus and L. fuscus), and to the blue-backed species (L. argen- 
tatus and L. canus), nest in colonies all over the island, each 
species commonly occupying a space to itself, in which none of 
the others occur. Hard by there breed a considerable number 
of Grey-lag Geese (Anser cinereus), but the two remaining 
species of Wild Geese (the Bean Goose, A. segetum, and the 
Lesser White-fronted Goose, A. evythvopus), belong to the inland 
parts of the country. These gulls and geese supply the tenant 
with many thousands of eggs annually. 
Among all these swarms of birds there breed numerous other 
species, which enjoy the advantage of the quiet which prevails 
*It is impossible for anyone unacquainted with Norway to understand the 
extreme appreciation in which these berries are there held.— 77ams/. 
+ Amtmand. { Tonder, see foot-note, p. 7. § 3 qrs. 21 lbs. 134 oz. 
