28 



by L , in Laxe Fjord, thousands of pairs thus nest together, 



and several thousand of the small and prettily pencilled eggs, 

 which are considered as the most savoury of all the sea birds' 

 eggs, can generally be taken annually by the proprietor, but in 

 certain years the whole colony absent themselves. 



A phenomenon in arctic nature may yet be mentioned, which 

 we often meet with, whilst we row about in the inner parts of the 

 large fjords of Finmarken. From time to time we may hear far 

 away an odd noise from the level of the sea, which sounds almost 

 like a distant thunder clap ; it is the sound produced when flocks 

 of thousands of Eider Ducks or Velvet Scoters (CEdemia fused) 

 suddenly, as if impelled by a common inspiration, rise from the 

 surface, fly a short distance, and settle again. These are the 

 non-breeding individuals, which pass the summer here in a social 

 life devoid of cares, and perform these flying and diving exercises 

 as a kind of game. 



We leave T and the other holms in the fjord, and con- 

 tinue our investigations in one of the luxuriant basins which 

 debouch upon both sides of the bottom of the fjord.* Though 

 each of these harbours a very rich and varied fauna, we select 



one among them, M , a tributary of a large river, whose broad 



valley bottom, situated in about 70 N. Lat., is clothed with the 

 most luxuriant birch-woods, and whose many windings, ere it 

 falls into the mighty head-river, form a series of flat, wooded 

 promontories or peninsulas, here and there filled with small 

 swamps and willow thickets. Besides these favourable localities 

 being inhabited by their proper arctic forms among small birds 

 and waders, several of our more southern species have also been 

 induced to send their furthest advanced guards up hither, where 



they find in the sheltered sides of the valley of M , the 



northernmost limit for their extension with us (and in the whole 

 world). 



We have not wandered far from the house by the river's mouth 



* Such are the estuaries of Bors-Elv, Staburs-Elv, and Lax-Elv in Porsanger- 

 fjord, Laxefjordbund in Laxefjord, Tana-Elv and its many tributaries inside Tana- 

 fjord, also Cyborg and the Pasvig-Elv in Syd-Varanger. 



