A Visit to Lajpland. 375 



" one Ural owl, one blackcock, and one Siberian jay were all 

 that we shot, and we always had a loaded gun ready in the 

 sledge, but neither heard of nor saw a single wolf." 



Having arrived at Quickiock, the ' ' Old Bushman " rarely 

 wandered more than three Swedish miles from it, but in four 

 months he obtained and skinned more than a thousand speci- 

 mens, besides collecting a great many eggs and butterflies. 

 The first impression of Lapland scenery in the winter he found 

 very striking, but the effect wore off on acquaintance, and a 

 wearisome sense of monotony ensued ; " everywhere the view 

 was shut in by barren fells, the tops of most of them covered 

 with perennial snows." An old parish clerk stated that, for 

 forty-two days in the winter, it was so dark you could not 

 see to kill a bird with a rifle at a hundred yards, and these 

 depressing influences act upon the manners of the people ; " if 

 you speak to them you get a half-civil answer, but nothing 

 more — their manner is very different from the hearty welcome 

 the stranger receives in old Wermland." 



The physical geography of the neighbourhood of Quickiock 

 is excellently sketched in the following passage : — 



" The situation of Quickiock is romantic in the extreme, 

 and in the summer it would be hard to find a place in Lapland 

 to beat it for wild, natural scenery. Surrounded on all sides 

 by fells and forests, yet, lying as the village does in a sheltered 

 valley, every kind of ground is met with here, and the 

 naturalist could hardly choose a better station. A large river, 

 the Tara Elf, flows down the fells close by the village ; the 

 proximity of the village to the fells themselves renders it 

 peculiarly interesting to the collector; while meadows and 

 swamps choked with grass and every species of aquatic 

 plants, intermixed with numerous small and natural channels, 

 and inland lakes, afford shelter for many species of ducks ; but, 

 strange to say, there are fewer waders in this district than in 

 any I know. The Lap forests, in general, present a strange 

 contrast to the deep forests of Wermland and Dalecarlia. The 

 branches of the fir trees all grow in a slanting direction 

 downward, and as they are for the most part dead and jagged, 

 although the trees are small, it is no easy matter to climb 

 them ; the meadows and lower grounds are covered with thick 

 plantations of a species of willow, through which, in many 

 places, it is impossible to force one's way, and immediately 

 above them are the forests composed of fir. We see very little 

 pine here, and what few pines we do see are generally blighted 

 and bare. The higher we ascend the fell sides the smaller 

 become the forests, till at length we miss the fir altogether 

 and reach the birch district. On leaving this we come to the 

 fell birch, which, exposed as the trees are to the cutting wind 



