3 1 70 Quadrupeds. 



The immense forests of Scandinavia are well suited to them, and there 

 they abound in great numbers ; and many a time, when wearied with 

 driving day after day through these interminable forests, have I been 

 amused by stopping to watch the gambols of the squirrels, as they 

 darted across the road and chased one another among the trees ; the 

 deep sand of which the road is composed, preventing any noise of the 

 carriole or sound of the pony's feet from heralding my approach : and 

 many times have I pulled up, and sat for many minutes within a few 

 yards of these frolicsome little fellows, while they continued their gam- 

 bols quite unconscious that they were being observed, and were within 

 a very little distance of a loaded gun. But that gun was never lifted 

 against them, excepting on one occasion, when I fired from my lair in 

 the carriole, and killed a very fine one, whose skin I was anxious to 

 procure as a specimen, but whose untimely death I could not help 

 deploring, as he fell from the bough on which he had been gambol- 

 ling ; and I half regretted his barbarous murder, although the sight of 

 his beautiful skin soon dispelled all qualms of conscience upon that 

 score. I was also fortunate in procuring some winter skins of the 

 squirrel, which were gray, and exceedingly warm and thick, and are 

 much sought for by the Norwegians and Laplanders on that account. 



The Hare, {Lepus variabilis). Having seen in Murray's admirable 

 1 Handbook for Norway,' and in other descriptions of sporting in that 

 country, frequent mention of hares, I expected to find them very abun- 

 dant, and indeed I know that others have found them in some num- 

 bers ; yet, strange to say, though I was peculiarly fortunate in falling 

 in with game of almost every other description, and although I wan- 

 dered about in search of game in every kind of country, fjeld and fo- 

 rest, mountain and valley, heath and underwood, rough and smooth, 

 stony and grassy tracts, T only saw a hare on one occasion ; and then 

 I was driving through the skirt of a forest, when the hare in question 

 darted across the road, and up the hill-side, where he sat very compo- 

 sedly at about a hundred yards' distance, apparently for me to watch 

 him. He seemed of rather large size, and was of a light gray colour, 

 in which he assimilated very closely to the rocks and loose stones 

 around. 1 left the carriole, and taking my gun, went in pursuit j but 

 he was too wary to let me stalk him, and bounded away before I could 

 get within shot. These hares become perfectly white in the winter, in 

 common with so many other of the quadrupeds and birds that inhabit 

 those snowy regions. Alfred Charles Smith. 



Old Park, Devizes, June 4, 1851. 



(To he continued). 



