3042 Birds. 



mountains, like an arrow from a bow. Placing both feet together, 

 with nothing in his hands to steady him, but bearing our heavy pro- 

 vision-box and blankets at his back, down he went, his pace accele- 

 rating every second till he reached the bottom, and enveloped all the 

 way down in a wreath of snow, which he cast off on both sides of his 

 feet and legs, as if it had been turned up by a plough, and marking 

 his track by a deep furrow. The captain and I followed, much more 

 slowly, holding the barrels of our guns across us, while the butt end 

 was plunged deep into the snow to steady us and to slacken our pace. 

 If we leaned forward too much, we were in danger of going down, 

 head over heels ; if we leaned back too much, our feet would slip 

 from under us, and the same result would inevitably follow, and we 

 should have a roll of perhaps some hundred feet, without a chance of 

 stopping till we reached the bottom ; by no means pleasant, even on 

 snow, and especially when the snow-hill ended (as was not unfre- 

 quently the case) in a rocky precipice; to roll over which must be 

 certain death. Right glad was I to get to the bottom of these snow- 

 mountains, and though I went down many such, it was never when by 

 going round I could avoid them : it was in such scenery as this, and 

 amongst these snow-mountains, that I saw the snow-bunting. I saw 

 four of them in various parts of this fjeld, and I never saw one on any 

 other occasion : they were all alike, in their summer plumage of black 

 and white (this was on the 11th of July), and were all upon the snow 

 itself, hopping and running about upon it, and then flying a short 

 distance to another part. I never saw so much snow as on this day : 

 indeed, as the sun was very bright, and the snow of the most pure, 

 dazzling white (for there was no dust or earth amongst the rocks to 

 discolour it), I was nearly blinded by it, notwithstanding a green 

 veil that I put on : for miles and miles we had to plunge through it, 

 and all around us it lay in larger or smaller patches, far as the eye 

 could reach, till in the distance we saw, on one side, the rounded 

 snow-capped summits of the mountains of Justedal and the Fille-fjeld, 

 or, on the other, the sharp pointed rocks and needle-like peaks of the 

 Horungtinderne range. I have entered into rather a longer and more 

 minute account of this fjeld, because, in addition to its peculiarly wild 

 and barren character, and the magnificent views from it, I fell in with 

 so much to interest me as a naturalist. There were the ptarmigan of 

 both species, alpinus and subalpinus ; the snow-buntings ; two herds 

 of tame rein-deer ; several ermines ; some of those curious and mys- 

 terious creatures, the lemmings (of all which animals more hereafter, 

 when 1 come to speak of the quadrupeds of Norway) ; besides the 



