ON A NORWEGIAN FIORD 3 



but also to discover the history of the extraordinary 

 changes it undergoes as it grows from the egg. I 

 sent my pupil Dr. Willey, now professor in Montreal, 

 one summer to a nearly closed sea-lake, the " pantano " 

 of Faro, near Messina, where the lancelet breeds. He 

 brought home hundreds of minute young in various 

 stages, and again later made a second visit to that 

 remote sea*lake in order to complete our knowledge of 

 their growth and structure by observation on the spot. 



The advantage of the Norwegian fiords for a 

 naturalist who loves to "dredge" is that at many parts 

 of the coast you can sail into water of 200 fathoms 

 depth and more, within three minutes from the rocky 

 shore ; and, secondly, that the great passage between 

 the islands and the mainland is, to a very large extent, 

 protected from those movements of the surface which 

 cause such torture to many innocent people who venture 

 on the sea in boats! Accordingly, in 1882, when I 

 heard from the greatest naturalist-dredger of his day — 

 the Rev. Canon Norman, of Durham — that he knew a 

 farmhouse at Lervik, on the island of Stordo, near the 

 mouth of the Hardanger Fiord, between Bergen and 

 Stavanger — ^where one could stay, and where a boat 

 could be hired for a couple of months — 1 determined to 

 go there. I was confirmed in my purpose by the fact 

 that Canon Norman had obtained in his dredge, at a 

 spot near Lervik, which he marked for me on the large- 

 scale official map of the region, a very curious little 

 polyp-like animal, attached to and branching on the 

 stems of the white coral which one dredges there at the 

 depth of 150 fathoms. The little animal in quest of 

 which I went, though other wonderful things were to be 

 expected also, had been dredged originally by Dr. 

 Norman off the Shetland Islands, and described by 



