HOW CAUSED. 149 



" Nine or ten years ago the Fjall-E.ipa on Lofoden and 

 Westeraalen thus fell down to the coast, and were killed in 

 such numbers throuohout the whole winter as to be sold 

 for 2 skillings, or Id., each, the usual price being 6 sldll- 

 ings, or 3d. They were then mostly used as food for 

 servants. Of late years, however, these migrations of 

 the Fjall-Uipa have been of less frequent occurrence 

 than formerly, when they usually took place at intervals 

 of only a few years. 



"The cause of the migrations in question is believed 

 to 1)6, that during the years when they occur the fjiills 

 are covered with dense masses of snow, which, instead of 

 drifting in places, as usually happens, has fallen in calm 

 weather and rested evenly everywhere; and from its 

 surface having subsequently frozen, the Ripa are prevented 

 from obtaining access not only to the crakeberry — their 

 favourite food, which, as said, remains green all the 

 winter — but to the dwarf birch and willow, on the buds 

 and tender shoots of which, when the crakeberry is 

 debarred them, they also feed." 



These periodical migrations of the Fjall-E-ipa from 

 their alpine homes to the lowlands would not seem to be 

 confined to the Lofoden islands, for Nilsson informs us 

 that, when at Upper Hallingdal, in Norway, he was told 

 by the people there that " on the occurrence of heavy 

 snoAV-storms, these birds would descend from the fjiills, 

 and perch on the birch-trees in such numbers that they 

 seemed clad in white." 



Again: "This year, 1863," writes M. Widmark from 

 Qviclsjock, in Lapland, " there are unusually few Fjall- 

 Ripa OR the Lulea fjiills. This may possibly be owing to 

 the enormous quantity of snow that fell during the past 

 Avinter, which drove them down from their proper haunts 

 — the Skogshnjn, or upper edge of the birch region — 

 to the forest region, even to the forest itself, and to 



