337 



THE LEPIDOPTEBA OF THE NORWEGIAN PEOVINCES 

 OF ODALEN AND FINMAEK. 



By W. G. Sheldon, F.E.S. 



(Continued from p. 315.) 



From July 18tli I spent five days at Kistrand, the principal 

 village in the district, and the residence of the only clergyman, 

 doctor, and herdsman in the Porsanger Fjord. I found excellent 

 quarters with Herr Lillebo, the local merchant. Schoyen, in 

 1879, captured here some examples of the very rare Brenthis 

 chariclea, flying in swampy meadows with B. -pales. The first 

 four days of my stay the sun did not appear, but on July 

 23rd it shone briUiantly ; B. pales on this day was not un- 

 common, but the rarer species could not be turned up. On the 

 evening of this day I left, with much regret, the most interesting 

 Porsanger district, and, traveUing in the local steamer to Hornig- 

 svaag, the next day boarded the mail boat there, in a perfect 

 hurricane. Fortunately the passage is partly sheltered by 

 islands, and thus we did not get the full effect of the storm, but 

 what we did get was more than sufficient for almost the whole of 

 the passengers. 



On my return journey I stayed three days at Tromso, chiefly 

 to see the Museum, but partly also to do some collecting. Un- 

 fortunately the sun did not shine during my stay, and conse- 

 quently I did not see there a single butterfly. 



From Tromso I travelled direct to Trondhjem, at which port 

 I booked a passage to England on the Hull boat. 



I suppose the weather dui-ing my stay within the Arctic 

 Circle was about an average of what is to be found there in June 

 and July, and certainly it was much better than what I expe- 

 rienced in 1911 in one respect— the number of perfect days 

 enjoyed ; though in other ways there was not much difierence in 

 the two years. On turning up my diaries I find that in 1911 

 I spent thirty-three days in Lapland ; out of these only two 

 were cloudless. On twenty there was more or less broken sun- 

 shine, and on eleven the sun did not break through the clouds. 

 This year I was in Finmarken forty-two days, of which fifteen 

 were perfect, ten not perfect, and seventeen cloudy throughout ; 

 unfortunately, five of the perfect days were wasted — from a 

 lepidopterist's point of view — by my having to travel on them 

 from Bossekop to Kolvik, a distance as the crow flies of about 

 fifty miles, but through swamps, over mountains, and through 

 roadless, uninhabited, and impossible country. 



In addition to the Porsanger there are three other fjords 

 in Arctic Norway east of the North Cape ; of these the most 

 easterly, the Varanger Fjord, is well known entomologically, 

 but the other two, the Laxe and Tana Fjords, have, I believe, 



