16 A SPBING AND SUMMER IN LAPLAND. 



meadow and cultivated land and dells, where the 

 willow and the alder vegetate in great luxuriance, 

 nearly every species of land birds finds a congenial 

 home. Whilst vast morasses, many of which can 

 never be traversed by the human foot, rivers, and 

 inland lakes of every size, fringed with the reed, 

 the bulrush, and the candock, and thousands of 

 acres of low meadow land, covered with thick 

 coarse grass, abound in every species of water 

 and aquatic birds, which resort to the north in 

 hundreds at the commencement of the breeding 

 season. It is here that the British naturalist 

 begins to meet with rare and new specimens, and 

 it is here that the eye of the traveller first gazes 

 on the fine scenery of the north ; and more beau- 

 tiful scenery than Scandinavia displays during the 

 summer months it would be hard to find. I have 

 wandered over many lands, but scarcely ever 

 saw a European landscape to vie with this. 



In the very north, the appearance of the whole 

 country becomes gradually more wild and rugged, 

 and high mountains and barren fells, covered with 

 perennial snows, rise above the limits of vegeta- 

 tion, and towering over the forests which skirt 

 their bases, are the home of some few of the very 

 scarcest and wildest species, whose haunts during 

 the breeding season are but little known to us. 



It is therefore not to be wondered at that the 



