ARCTIC-ALPINE TUNDRAS AND FJELDS 265 



peat in the Arctic region is not so rapid, extensive, and 

 perfect as in milder countries, chiefly by reason of the 

 shortness of the vegetative season. Moreover, the peat- 

 moss, or sphagnum, and the ling, so common among 

 our tracts of peat-bogs, fail in the Arctic. The moss- 

 tundra disappears, going farther north, and is character- 

 istic only of the subarctic district. 



In the tundra the gastronomic resources are reduced 

 to their minimum. A scanty supply of berries, a meagre 

 soup of reindeer-lichen, a few roots, and an occasional 

 salad of cochlearia are all that can be expected. For- 

 tunately the reindeer, besides its hardiness and its unique 

 aptitude to cross the moors by reason of its broad hoofs, 

 exhibits a remarkable faculty for turning lichens into 

 food. Hence it becomes a most valuable asset for the 

 natives who are obliged to leave it to find its own fodder, 

 while they wander after the half-wild herds, and depend 

 largely on the milk, skin, horns, bones, and flesh, for 

 a living. 



Physical conditions very similar to those of the tundra 

 extend far south on the ridges of the Urals and the 

 summits of the Scandinavian Highlands, the ultimate 

 outliers of which may be encountered in the broad table 

 tops of the Scottish Highlands. Despite the now regu- 

 lar alternation of day and night, the vegetation of these 

 arctic-alpine plateaus possesses, on the whole, the same 

 features. The name ' fjelds ' connotes, in Scandinavia, 

 this type of physical and plant scenery. Above the last 

 birches which here, as on the polar side, form the upper 

 limit of the forests, occurs a grassy brush of low under- 

 shrubs, with small and leathery-leaved dwarf junipers 

 and birches, crowberries, cranberries, &c., often over 

 a carpet of mosses and lichens. Beyond 4,000 feet this 

 is succeeded by a close mat or rug of yellow-grey shrubby 



