PRESERVATION OF GAME. 159 



ned pii marken sa iiv hem fast; that is, provided the hirds 

 alight on the ground, they are surely made prisoners." 



" For the better preservation of the dead hirds," savs 

 Nordholm, " they are deposited in a dry room, where the 

 weather cannot affect them ; and as soon as the first 

 night frost occurs, they are exposed in the open air to be 

 fr'ozen, and afterwards taken in again. Some people, 

 however, place their birds in large tubs, where they are 

 embedded in gran-ris, or twigs of the spruce pine, in 

 which it is said they will remain uninjured for eight 

 whole weeks." 



Tlie captures made are commensurate Avith the 

 exertions of the fowlers. Nordholm tells us that in his 

 time — independently of those consumed at home and 

 in the neighbouring towns — 80 sledge-loads, each contain- 

 ing from 2,000 to 3,000 birds of one kind or another, 

 w^ere annually sent from Norrland to Stockholm alone, 

 which produced a considerable sum of money. 



"The feathers of the captured birds," the same 

 writer tells us, "are valuable not only as merchan- 

 dise, but for household purposes, every peasant being 

 provided with two or three down beds. The eggs of 

 the forest birds," Nordholm adds, "are set great store by, 

 and are used in like manner as those of the common 

 hen, and have an equally agreeable taste." 



Great, however, as is the extent to which "trapping " 

 is carried in the north of Sweden, it must not be supposed 

 that any one peasant captures a sufficient number of Ijirds 

 to load a sledge for a distant rharket. There are not many 

 individuals, indeed, who take more than from 200 to 300 

 head of game in the course of the season. It is the 

 regular dealer who, when the birds are frozen, goes from 

 homestead to homestead and purchases from the trapper 

 and subsequently conveys them himself to far-off towns. 



A large portion of the birds thus shot and trapped in 



