MOUNTAINS ANT) FJET.DS. 127 



which presents the appearance of clods disposed in irre- 

 gular steps, covered with a vigorous herbage. Each of 

 these clods is mined by passages where the birds make 

 their nests. At some little distance from the sea-shore 

 these passages are continued, sometimes straight, some- 

 times sinuously, but in a direction very nearly horizontal, 

 to a depth of from 1 to 2 metres, 40 to 80 inches ; they 

 are about 30 centimetres, 12 inches, in diameter. 



The Nyker, the inhabitants of which are to be reckoned 

 by millions, are at the moment when the birds quit their 

 nests so surrounded by countless swarms, that at a distance 

 they appear as if enveloped in clouds or in a crape-veil. 

 There is heard afar off a humming sound, as from a swarm 

 of bees, and when the midst of the birds is reached, the 

 noise is altered to a roar, like that of a violent storm or 

 tempest. The Nyker appear there riddled by white spots 

 in perpetual motion, or as if seen through a dense fall of 

 snow, occasioned by the movements of the birds coming 

 and going. The most remarkable of these Nyker are found 

 in some heights which shoot up directly from the sea in 

 the neighbourhood of the isle of Ro^t, near Malnaes, on the 

 west coast of the island of Lango, and on the west coast of 

 the island of Ando. The Nyker are inhabited by birds of 

 passage, which quit them in the months of August and 

 September, to go further into the region of the Arctic 

 Ocean, whence they return in March and April. To take 

 them in the subterranean mines where they are found in 

 their nests, there are employed dogs like the turnspit, 

 trained for the purpose. Part of the birds are eaten salted, 

 and money is made by the sale of the eggs. These birds 

 there take the place of vegetation. 



The mountain land stretching between the Porsanger 

 fiord on the north-west, and the Varangar fiord on the 

 east ; and on the south-west the littoral mountain chain 

 of West Finmark is the Finmark plateau, which, in con- 

 tradistinction to the lands already described, may be 

 described as a flat country. Its mean elevation is about 



