32 ADVENTURES IN THE NORTHERN SEAS. 



There are also several extensive boileries of seal 

 and walrus blubber, and of fish-liver oil, and I am 

 sure that, if the numerous fair sufferers in Europe 

 and America who swallow their daily drams of 

 1 'pale brown cod-liver oil" were only to see the 

 enormous vats full of rotting seythe livers, and to 

 smell the horrific exhalations from these boiling- 

 houses, it would sadly diminish the profits of the 

 far-famed Dr. De Jongh. 



We took several walks in the mountains, and 

 shot a few ducks, ptarmigans, and ripas for the ta- 

 ble. I have shot many hundreds of these two last- 

 named birds throughout Norway, and I have not 

 the smallest doubt on my own mind that they are 

 both identical in species with our Scottish ptarmi- 

 gan and red grouse, being merely, as Mr. Darwin 

 would say, "strongly-marked varieties,' 1 altered by 

 geographical conditions, such as the greater cold 

 and the necessity for the protection of a plumage 

 more resembling the country they frequent.* I 



* The ptarmigan is called in Scandinavia the " field-ripa," 

 or hill-grouse ; and the grouse the " dal-ripa," literally " val- 

 ley-grouse." The first frequents the high, rocky hills, and is 

 nowhere very abundant ; it seems to me exactly the same as 

 the ptarmigan, or white grouse of the Scottish mountains. 

 The dal-ripa inhabits the rocky islands and birch-covered hill- 

 sides in great numbers, and, although nearly as gray as the 

 ptarmigan, I have not the slightest doubt of his being the nme 

 bird as our Scottish red grouse, which he exactly resembles in 

 his size, his voice, his flight, his habits, and every thing except 

 his color. 



