174 
WILD NORWAY. 
breakfast, others the discarded extremities of tinned 
meats, and so on—not one scrap of which will our 
frugal hunters either throw away or convert to their 
own use till specially bidden. 
One crop there is in Norway which might perhaps 
be better utilized—the wild mountain-berries. The 
cloudberry, it is true, as well as the cranberry (tutibaer) 
and bleaberry, are collected both for eating fresh (and 
delicious they are) and for preserving ; but the enormous 
crops of other wild fruits, especially the krak-baer, which 
in September cover the fells, seem to deserve more 
attention than they receive. 
By mid-August many of the lower fells become as 
purple as our own moorlands—perfect seas of blooming 
heather extending down to the fjord levels. There is 
as yet, on the lower levels, but little sign of autumnal 
conditions : but on the higher fjeld, beyond where heather 
grows, the scant grasses and alpine plants have already 
in August begun to assume the sere and russet tints. 
By mid-September the forest-foliage is attaining the 
full glory of its splendid autumnal colouring. Amidst 
the quivering green of the birch-woods appear streaks 
and great patches of orange and pale gold—the brilliant 
“ irridescence of decay ”—a perfect blaze of colour, 
contrasted with the dark evergreen of the pines. The 
grasses, ferns, and many-hued mosses lend the hillside 
the warmest tones of russet, red and brown ; the maple- 
leaf fades to a brilliant crimson, set off by the glossy 
green of the alder and the emerald of the new-mown 
grass beneath. It is a beautiful season, the northern 
autumn ; but contemplation alone suffices not—it must 
be the concomitant of action. 
