FEEDS AT NIGHT. 127 



with bushes of birch and juniper, especially the latter, as 

 it is under these that they take shelter when moulting 

 during the spring and autumn. But if the cover consists 

 solely of birch bushes, one never finds so many birds. 



During the summer the Dal-Ripa feeds upon the leaves, 

 &c., of various bushes and plants, such as the grass-willow 

 (Salix herbacea), and several other kinds of willow; on those 

 of the bleaberry ( Faccinium Myrtillus), and more especially 

 on the flowers and seeds of the knot-grass or bread-wort 

 (Polygonum viviparum), which for that reason is called 

 in Norway Rype-gras, or Ripa-grass. In the autumn it 

 lives for the most part on berries, such as the Arctic 

 raspberry (Akerbar, Sw. ; Rubus Arcticm, Linn.) ; the 

 cloudberry (Hjortron, Sw. ; Rubus CJiamcBmorns, Linn.) ; 

 the red whortleberry or cowberry (Vaccinlum Vitis Idcea, 

 Linn.) ; the bleaberry ; and the crake or black crowberry 

 (Krakbdr, Sw. ; Empetrum my rum). During winter and 

 spring its food mainly consists of the incipient buds and 

 tender shoots of the willow, as well as those of the dwarf 

 and common birch. It then also occasionally eats, it is 

 said, the berries and leaves of the juniper bush. 



"The Dal-Ripa dui-ing winter," M. Earth tells us, 

 " feeds only during the night. At dusk they descend from 

 the higher slopes of the fjalls to lower localities, and 

 return again before dawn. These nocturnal wanderings 

 commence as early as September and continue until about 

 the middle or end of March. . . . After a fall of snow 

 one may frequently track them for six to eight hundred 

 paces in a direct line, and be tolerably sure of finding 

 the place where they lie." 



In summer and early autumn the Dal-Ripa keep in 

 pairs or in families, but on the approach of winter they 

 usually "pack," and at times in the fjall regions in 

 enormous numbers, nearly all the birds in the district 

 getting together at one and the same spot ; and thus they 



