X1 
select spots, often while the snow is still covering large tracts, 
where they may hatch out their young, during our short but 
sunny summer. 
Finally, from the inmost heads of the fjords, the land rises up 
to the monotonous wastes of Finmarken, or Lapland proper, 
clothed with sparse birch-forest, and pierced by rivers and lakes, 
regions which have great attractions for the sportsman and 
naturalist, but less so for the ordinary tourist, who only seeks 
after diversified scenery, and has not patience enough to wage 
throughout the short polar summer, a semi-hopeless war against 
the mosquitoes which swarm here. 
We shall in what follows, treat of some few traits of the Bird- 
life in that portion of our land. Let us therefore make in imag- 
ination a rapid flight to this north-westernmost corner of Europe, 
wander through the three natural zones, whereof Arctic Norway 
consists, and each of which shows quite peculiar characteristics, 
and in the meanwhile seize by degrees, whatever particularly 
strikes our attention on the way. ‘The three natural divisions re- 
ferred to are: 
I.—The coast district and the belt of islands girding the 
coast up to North Cape. 
I].—The deep fjords of the Arctic Ocean and the adjacent 
river basins in East Finmarken. 
I1I].—The interior plateaux of Finmarken, or Lapland proper. 
