REINDEER-STALKING IN RYFYLKE. 
29 
virgaurea), the rock-rose (Sedum rhodiold), tormentil 
and alpine campion (Lychum alpina), with many heaths 
and mosses. The northern slopes were mostly buried 
in snow and glacier, or carpeted with that peculiar 
substance—half moss, half soil, but wholly slime— 
which forms beneath and around eternal snow, and from 
which, when pressed underfoot, there wells forth a spurt 
of crystal water in drops bright as mercury. Many of 
the rocks showed beautifully • variegated striation— 
parallel bands of interjected strata, or larva, sometimes 
straight, often curiously twisted and contorted. 
Innumerable lakes filled the hollows of the hills, 
but these were absolutely lifeless—-not a water-bird 
broke their surface,* nor indeed were there many birds 
of any kind on the high fjeld. A pair of ravens would 
now and then come croaking round, deeply interested, 
for private reasons of their own, in our success. Once 
we watched a merlin chasing a wheatear; another day 
we came on a rough-legged buzzard dining on a lem¬ 
ming, and Paul almost wept at the loss of the two 
kroner reward. Besides these, a very few titlarks and 
wheatears, a chance white wagtail or dipper, and the 
ptarmigan, were literally all the birds we saw. 
A few words as to the ptarmigan and their autumn 
habits out here. When first found they were usually 
tame enough, their proximity only indicated by a low 
croak from among the rocks. Here a careful scrutiny 
might detect several of the covey cowering amidst the 
* Once, in September, we observed a big diver ( Colymbus ) on 
a fjeld lake at three thousand five hundred feet, but he was probably 
only resting on migration. There were, however, trout in several of 
the lakes, though by no means in all. 
