ON A NORWEGIAN FIORD 3 



but also to discover the history of the extraordinary 

 changes it undergoes as it grows from the egg. I 

 sent my pupil Dr. Willey, now professor in Montreal, 

 one summer to a nearly closed sea-lake, the " pantano " 

 of Faro, near Messina, where the lancelet breeds. He 

 brought home hundreds of minute young in various 

 stages, and again later made a second visit to that 

 remote sea-lake in order to complete our knowledge of 

 their growth and structure by observation on the spot. 



The advantage of the Norwegian fiords for a 

 naturalist who loves to " dredge " is that at many parts 

 of the coast you can sail into water of 200 fathoms 

 depth and more, within three minutes from the rocky 

 shore ; and, secondly, that the great passage between 

 the islands and the mainland is, to a very large extent, 

 protected from those movements of the surface which 

 cause such torture to many innocent people who venture 

 on the sea in boats! Accordingly, in 1882, when I 

 heard from the greatest naturalist- dredger of his day — 

 the Rev. Canon Norman, of Durham — that he knew a 

 farmhouse at Lervik, on the island of Stordo, near the 

 mouth of the Hardanger Fiord, between Bergen and 

 Stavanger — where one could stay, and where a boat 

 could be hired for a couple of months — I determined to 

 go there. I was confirmed in my purpose by the fact 

 that Canon Norman had obtained in his dredge, at a 

 spot near Lervik, which he marked for me on the large- 

 scale official map of the region, a very curious little 

 polyp-like animal, attached to and branching on the 

 stems of the white coral which one dredges there at the 

 depth of 150 fathoms. The little animal in quest of 

 which I went, though other wonderful things were to be 

 expected also, had been dredged originally by Dr. 

 Norman off the Shetland Islands, and described by 



