MOUNTAINS AND FJELDS. 127 
which presents the appearance of clods disposed in irre- 
gular steps, covered with a vigcrous 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 Vyker are found 
in some heights which shoot up directly from the sea in 
the ‘neighbourhood of the isle of Rost, near Malnes, 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 
éast ; 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 
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