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25 
by L——, in Laxe Fjord, thousands of pairs thus nest together, 
and several thousand of the small and prettily pencilled eggs, 
which are considered as the most savoury of all the sea birds’ 
eggs, can generally be taken annually by the proprietor, but in 
certain years the whole colony absent themselves. 
A phenomenon in arctic nature may yet be mentioned, which 
we often meet with, whilst we row about in the inner parts of the 
large fjords of Finmarken. From time to time we may hear far 
away an odd noise from the level of the sea, which sounds almost 
like a distant thunder clap; it is the sound produced when flocks 
of thousands of Eider Ducks or Velvet Scoters (Gdemia fusca) 
suddenly, as if impelled by a common inspiration, rise from the 
surface, fly a short distance, and settle again. These are the 
non-breeding individuals, which pass the summer here in a social 
life devoid of cares, and perform these flying and diving exercises 
as a kind of game. 
We leave T—— and the other holms in the fjord, and con- 
tinue our investigations in one of the luxuriant basins which 
debouch upon both sides of the bottom of the fjord.* Though 
each of these harbours a very rich and varied fauna, we select 
one among them, M—-—,, a tributary of a large river, whose broad 
valley bottom, situated in about 70° N. Lat., is clothed with the 
most luxuriant birch-woods, and whose many windings, ere it 
falls into the mighty head-river, form a series of flat, wooded 
promontories or peninsulas, here and there filled with small 
swamps and willow thickets. Besides these favourable localities 
being inhabited by their proper arctic forms among small birds 
and waders, several of our more southern species have also been 
induced to send their furthest advanced guards up hither, where 
they find in the sheltered sides of the valley of M , the 
northernmost limit for their extension with us (and in the whole 
world). 
We have not wandered far from the house by the river’s mouth 
* Such are the estuaries of Bors-Elv, Staburs-Elv, and Lax-Elv in Porsanger- 
fjord, Laxefjordbund in Laxefjord, Tana-Elv and its many tributaries inside Tana- 
fjord, also Nyborg and the Pasvig-Elv in Syd-Varanger. 
