156 ANECDOl'E. 



" Hereabout," he says, " the people never trouble them- 

 selves with the Fjiill-Ripa ; but as a proof that these birds 

 may readily be caught in snares, I may mention the fol- 

 lowing- incident : — In the winter of 1832, two men from 

 the parish of Lulea, who, owing to the prevailing dearth, 

 were unable to procure sustenance at home, and in the 

 hopes of bettering their fortunes, set off across the fjilUs 

 for Norway. But the Lapp avIio acted as their guide, 

 being utterly devoid of the common feelings of humanity, 

 left them to their fate in the wild mountains during so 

 heavy a snowstorm that they could not see farther before 

 them than their own feet. Oppressed by their melancholy 

 thoughts, and wandering they knew not where, they were 

 at length led by the hand of Providence to a lake, about 

 seventy (English) miles from Qvickjock Church, where 

 they found a lata, or hut. Happy in having at last a 

 roof over their heads, they for the moment forgot their 

 sufferings. As, however, it was long since they had eaten 

 anything, hunger soon reminded them that they had no 

 provisions remaining in their wallet ; and as they neither 

 knew the way forwards nor backwards, they doubted not it 

 would be their certain fate to die of famine. 



" But their grief vanished on seeing a pack of Fjall- 

 Ripa. With some thread they had about their persons, 

 they hurriedly prepared and set several snares, and pre- 

 sently cajitured such numbers of these birds that they 

 lived well for a whole w-eek ; and they would have secured 

 very many more had not the foxes and other vermin 

 divided the plunder with them." 



The number of llipa taken in the northern parts of 

 Scandinavia during the winter months is, as said, something 

 enormous. The late Sir Arthur ile-Capell Brooke tells 

 us that in the parish of Kautokeino, in Lapland — one, it is 

 true, of very great extent — no fewer than 00,000 of these 

 birds were killed during the season preceding that in which 



