SCHEI'S NARRATIVE. 481 



(Dry as octopetala), etc., etc. Quite barren, or only clad with some 

 kind of lichen, was the upper margin of the slopes, as well as 

 the country which continued downwards like a sea of large, 

 sharp-edged blocks of stone, until at its lower parts they became 

 stone-mixed clay, with here and there a few blades of grass ; 

 here and there a tuft of mountain flowers Cerastium alpionum, 

 Stellaria longipes, etc., etc. 



' Just as the vegetable life is correlated to the geology of a region, 

 so the animal life, its pursuer, and the geologist go of physical 

 necessity hand-in-hand. The screes are the haunt of the small game. 

 Here the hare finds a sheltered and well-hidden form when she has 

 done foraging among the rocks in the valley below ; and here, on the 

 patches of moss between the stones, the ptarmigan have their nests. 

 Eound about, the Andromeda, willow-scrub, and other plants provide 

 food for the young birds before they can fly, and require the cover 

 afforded by the greyish-brown speckled colour of the stony ground, 

 and by the hiding-places between the stones. It is not till later 

 in the year, when the snow falls on the heights, that the coveys, 

 now able to fly, go down to feed on the tufts of grass along the 

 river-side, which is kept bare by the wind. Their permanent 

 quarters, all the year round, however, are first on one scree and 

 then on another. 



'Whereas the screes, partly in the valleys and partly on the 

 heights, are the haunts of the small game, the big game is found in 

 the large valleys and on the level ground. The reindeer and polar 

 oxen migrate up the sheltered valleys to find shelter from the 

 storms, and to pass the nights, or because they have good places of 

 defence there when attacked, but their food they find on the level 

 country outside. 



'This is an old sea-floor and shore, chiefly built up of loose 

 masses from a recent geological period. The lower parts are flat 

 plains of sand and clay, while higher up it is more hilly. The 

 rivers, which come from the inner elevated land, have built up 

 mounds of grit and cut deep precipices, and the sea, when it 

 acquired the material thus carried down, formed the grit into 

 terraces and points at the mouths of the bays, and spread the clay 

 in flat depressions for longish distances along the shores. Scattered 

 VOL. i. 2 i 



