524 BIRD-CATCHING IN NORWAY. 



dents sometimes happen ; far if the one does not stand firm, or 

 is not strong enough to support the other when he slips, they 

 both fall, and are killed ; and this way there are some every 

 year destroyed. 



" Herr Peder Clauson, in his description of Norway, writes, 

 that in former times there was a law in the country, that 

 when any one by climbing the rocks fell, and was killed, and 

 his body was found, that then his nearest relation should go 

 the same way. If he could not, or would not venture, then 

 the deceased was not allowed a Christian burial, but treated 

 as a criminal, who had by that means been his own execu- 

 tioner ; but that law is not in force now-a-days. 



" When the men, in the manner already related, get up the 

 rocks to the birds, in those places where they seldom come, 

 the birds are so tame that they may take them up with their 

 hands ; for they do not readily leave their young. But where 

 they are wild, there the men either throw a net over them in 

 the rocks, or else they oppose a net, attached to their poles, 

 to those that are flying away, or come flying in again, and 

 thus entangle them. 



" In this way they catch vast numbers of puffins and razor- 

 bills. In the meantime there is a boat lying underneath, on 

 the sea, into which they throw their dead fowl, and so quickly 

 fill the vessel. When the weather is tolerably good, and 

 there is a great deal of game, the bird-men will lie eight days 

 together in the rocks ; for there are here and there holes 

 that they can safely and securely rest in, and provision is let 

 down to them by lines, and others go every day to them with 

 little boats, to fetch what they catch. 



" Many rocks are so frightful and dangerous, that they 

 cannot possibly climb up them ; for which reason they con- 



