THE SUB-ARCTIC ZONE. 35 



But let us take courage and plunge into the gloomy Pine- 

 forest ; we shall meet a friend to cheer us before we have 

 taken many steps, the beautiful wild Foxglove (Digitalis 

 purpurea] . Venturing a little further on, we find the white 

 English Stonecrop (Sedum Anglicum), with red spots on its 

 pretty white blossoms ; small upright St. John's-wort (Hy- 

 pericum pulc/trum) , and the Earth Nut, or Pig Nut (Bunium 

 Bulbocastanum] , which the black bears, no doubt, have an 

 eye to. There is a flower here, too, which is sometimes 

 found in the woods in England, but is not indigenous there, 

 called Orange Hawkweed (Hieracium aurantiacutfi) ; there 

 are little bushy Burnet Roses too (Rosa spinosissima] ; the 

 common Heath (Erica cinerea), etc. 



Having now become accustomed to the solemnity of a 

 forest, we shall feel no hesitation about making an excur- 

 sion by-and-by in the forests of Siberia ; we will therefore 

 bend our course eastward. Those who please may perform a 

 part of the journey in a sledge, over one or two of the great 

 frozen Swedish lakes; but we would rather decline that 

 method of travelling, as travellers are often put in consider- 

 able danger on these occasions by the attendance of hungry 

 wolves in their rear following their track across the ice. 



It will be worth while to pause a little on the shores of 



