102 
WILD NORWAY. 
CHAPTER VIII. 
SUMMER RAMBLES ON THE SURENDAL FJELDS*. 
I. Langora-fjeld and Anders-yand. 
The business of life on a Norwegian salmon-river of 
course centres on the salmon, all other objects becoming 
subservient to the capture of that noble fish, which the 
nightly rises of the river (caused, in well-regulated 
seasons, by the daily melting of the snow on the fjelds) 
bring up from the sea and tidal waters of the fjords. 
But there is always the weekly close-time. Sunday in 
Surendal begins at 6 p.m. on Saturday : and, in such 
seasons as that of 1892, there are floods that suspend 
fishing-operations for days, and give opportunity for 
rambles on the fjelds and exploration further afield. 
We had, moreover, no very austere taskmaster; indeed, 
# Surendal is taken as typical, in regard to bird-life, of the lower- 
lying* fjelds—say, under 2000 feet elevation. The nesting birds of 
the high snow-fjeld, 3000 feet and upwards, are extremely circum¬ 
scribed in variety. There are the ptarmigan, titlarks, and wheatears ; 
a chance pair of plovers or sea-gulls. The dipper breeds on the burns 
at 4500 feet, and once we found a ring-ouzel on the 3000 foot line— 
the nest on quite open ground against a stone. The raven roams 
ubiquitous, and there is the snowy owl and other birds of prey ; but 
one rarely sees a snow-bunting, and never a “rare” sandpiper or 
any of those northern forms one expects and keenly seeks. Hence 
I have omitted a chapter I had written on the summer-birds of the 
high fjeld. But see plate, “ On Summer-Snows,” opposite. 
