SUMMER RAMBLES ON THE SURENDAL FJELDS. 103 
our host was one of the best-naturecl of men, who over¬ 
looked my occasional truancies on the fjeld, though I 
sometimes suspected that his kindly heart bled when 
the exigencies of “ science ” converted either birds or 
their eggs into specimens. 
Immediately behind the house rose the wall-like 
slope of the Langora-Fjekl, a wild expanse of moor 
stretching over a vast area of broken fell-land of no 
great elevation, the mean level of the plateau hardly 
exceeding twelve hundred feet. On the early morning 
of June 19th, Ivar and I set out to visit a lonely lake 
that lies some twelve miles away upon this fjeld. 
Climbing out through the steep hanging woods of 
birch and pine, we fell in with an adder (a common 
reptile about the crags and in gnarled old trees), where¬ 
upon Ivar observed, “We shall have rain,” and a smart 
thunderstorm followed soon after; though whether the 
reptile brought the rain, or the converse, is an open 
question. 
Beyond Nyegaard Seeter, where a vociferous pair 
of whimbrels were nesting, we reached the fjeld proper 
—rough moor, heath-clad, and “ horrid ” with the stiff 
scrub of creeping birch. It was singular to see quite 
large trees trained flat on the ground by winter s snows, 
and merely raising their latest shoots heavenwards in 
a half-apologetic sort of way. Then came stretches of 
dry, hummocky moss, alternating with marsh and bog, 
where black, miry waters oozed out from under patches 
of snow, and where, in sheltered nooks, a few stunted 
pines found root-hold, and bramblings sang. Moss and 
moor were diversified by sterile, stony regions where 
great grey rocks protruded, and the snow lay in broad 
