DIVERSIONS OF A 

 NATURALIST 



CHAPTER I 

 ON A NORWEGIAN FIORD 



THE splendour of our Sussex Weald, with its shady 

 forests and lovely gardens, around which rise the 

 majestic Downs sweeping in long graceful curves marked 

 by the history of our race, has charmed me during these 

 sunny days of June. The orchids, the water-lilies, the 

 engaging and quaintly named " petty whin," and the pink 

 rattle are joined with the tall foxgloves and elder-blossoms 

 in my memory. And for some reason— perhaps it is the 

 heat — I am set thinking of very different scenes — the 

 great, cool fiords of Norway, with their rocky islets and 

 huge, bare mountain-tops, where many years ago I had 

 the " time of my life " in exploring with the naturalist's 

 dredge the coral-grown sea-bottom looo and even 2000 

 feet in a straight line below the little boat in which I 

 and my companion and three Norwegian boatmen floated 

 on the dark purple waves. 



To let a dredge — an oblong iron frame some three 

 feet long, to the edges of which a bag of strong netting 

 is laced, whilst the frame is hung to a rope by a mystical 

 triangle — sink from the side of a boat and scrape the 



