PRELIMINARY REMARKS. 9 



that let his taste be what it may whether he be 

 a sportsman, a naturalist, or merely a wanderer in 

 search of the beauties of nature the traveller 

 here will find full employment ; and there is, 

 probably, scarcely another country in Europe, 

 through which (especially during the summer 

 months) a stranger can travel with so much 

 cheapness, security, and freedom as in this. 



But to return to our more immediate subject. 

 As regards the mammalia of Scandinavia, two 

 hypotheses have been framed respecting their intro- 

 duction into this land. It is supposed by some, 

 and with good reason, that this continent was at 

 an early period landlocked with the rest of Europe 

 before the Baltic and the Bothnia formed a divid- 

 ing line of sea ; and according to their idea, most 

 of the southern species came over the dry land 

 where the Baltic now flows, and the more northern 

 ones, such as the glutton, Arctic fox, reindeer, 

 flying squirrel, and some others, came from the 

 tracts lying north-east of the Bothnian Gulf. Be 

 this, however, as it may, each species appears to 

 be pretty well confined to its assigned limits, and 

 only makes occasional migrations to other districts, 

 induced by an instinct which it baffles man's 

 ingenuity to account for. 



Not so, however, with the ornithology of the 

 north. The migrations of the feathered race to 



