of her skin pelisse, between which and their own skins the Laplanders stow every thing. She had heard me express a wish for a dog of that kind, and had brought it; and in return for her attention received a suitable present of coffee and sugar.

Our complicated account being settled, and the money paid, the girl, after speaking with her friends, came back in some distress, and laid the cash down again on the table. She had forgot, she said, to make the bargain that their own people should kill the deer. They would do it immediately, and ask nothing; but it would be ill luck to allow one to be killed by any other persons. On consulting my housekeeper, a native of Finmark and acquainted with their usages, I found that it was a general prejudice among the Laplanders, and that they would kill and cut up the animal more nicely than our houseman. As the deer was old and unaccustomed to eat hay, I could not have kept it in a thriving state, and it could scarcely have been fatter; I agreed therefore to their request. I was curious to see how they would perform the operation. The man led the deer to a spot of clean snow, and stuck his little knife into the point of junction between the head and neck. The animal fell, and was dead immediately. He then stabbed it behind the fore shoulder to the heart, not withdrawing the knife for some time, and moving the limbs that it might bleed inwardly. The few drops of blood that followed when the knife was withdrawn were, I thought, with a kind of superstitious care, taken

up into a handful of snow, kneaded into a ball so that no blood could be seen, and then laid aside. He then flayed and opened the carcass on the ground with great dexterity and cleanliness, always laying a handful of snow on the place where he had to touch the meat. He next removed the whole of the entrails, and scooped out the blood when there was nothing else left into a vessel, when the women mixed it with salt and stirred it about to prepare it for black-puddings. The whole operation was carried on in so cleanly a manner, with so little touching or handling of the meat, and always with a handful of snow between it and the hand, that the most dainty could have found nothing to object to. A Scotch butcher tearing a carcass to pieces with axe, cleaver, saw, hands and knees, and none of them extremely clean, would have been put to shame by these anatomists. The man and his eldest boy, with little knives having three inches of blade stuck in a wooden handle, disjointed the back-bone and other strong parts of the body with the greatest ease, like a good carver cutting up a fowl, and so neatly that they scarcely left a speck of blood on the snow where they had been working.

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I was so well pleased with this performance that gave them a dinner of soup, potatoes, and herrings, with plenty of coffee and brandy. They were much gratified at being treated like other people and set down to a table regularly, instead of getting the victuals in their hands to eat in a corner or take with them, which is the usual way.

I doubt if I could any way have pleased them so much as by this little attention, for even these poor people have their pride. At parting, they gave me a reindeer cheese; and at Christmas sent me a very handsome and a very useful reindeerskin pelisse made in the shape of their own, like a waggoner's frock, also driving reins for my sledge very curiously plaited of reindeer sinews. They would have taken nothing for these articles if I had not insisted on it. There is a good disposition in these harmless innocent little folk, if it were cultivated. But it is not: the Norwegians to the south of Dronthiem know as little about them as we do in England, and are almost as remote from them in time, if not in distance. Where they do come in contact with the Norwegian bonder, although received always kindly, partly perhaps from superstition, they are treated as an inferior caste. They are so indeed in strength, in size, and as yet in mental as well as bodily endow ments; yet they have many good points, and scarcely any evil in them. From North Cape to Roraas it is universally said of this despised caste, "that a Fin never says what is not true, and never takes what is not his own.' This is a high character for an outcast tribe.

My reindeer weighed 122lbs. the four quarters, and had 10lbs. of tallow. This is, This is, I suppose, as much as the tame animal in general will feed to. The wild species, which comes considerably farther south, being found on Dovre Fjelde and in Bergens Amt as well as to the north, is considerably

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larger. This seems not the usual effect of domestication. The horse, the rabbit, the goose, the duck, the turkey, attain to greater size tame than wild.

Besides the wild and tame reindeer, the red deer and roebuck are pretty numerous in some districts. The elk, the largest of European wild animals, exists in two or three places, but is now very rare.

December, 1835.-The cold begins to drive birds from the Fjelde to the shelter of the valleys. Bonder bring in more capercailzie, ptarmigan, and jerper than I require; and besides these common birds, there are flocks of the beautiful Bohemian chatterer (Ampelis garrulus) in the valley. The wolf is also a regular nightly visitor about the house. We trace his footprints in the snow every morning close to the doors of the cattle houses.

The wolves of this country are not such dangerous animals as those of the south of Europe or of Poland, although perhaps more numerous. They have probably more food in the Fjelde from the wild deer and smaller animals, and are therefore less ferocious. They very rarely attack a man, and are not dreaded even by women and children. Yet it is considered dangerous to meet a herd upon a plain or frozen lake, especially on moonlight nights; but the animal is so timid in general that it is difficult to get within shot of him. By a bait of a dead dog or sheep, a patient sportsman may chance by night to shoot one; but they are so wary that he may watch long enough to no

purpose. Yet the wolf, when least expected, will dash into the road, and take away your dog close to your sledge. He seems particularly fond of this flesh, and is altogether bold in seizing it. A merchant of Levanger had one taken from between his legs in his sledge this winter, on the road to Verdalsæren, but was not injured himself. I heard also, but not so certainly, that one seized a dog which a lad on horseback for security kept before him on the saddle. The loss of sheep, calves, cows, and foals, in some parishes during the season when they are at pasture, is immense. It has amounted to upwards of twelve head of animals on each farm in the course of four years. When the wolf gets into a herd he bites and tears all he can overtake. The bear follows a different course. Having seized one and killed it, he is content with this single prey. Although the wolves are so destructive and so numerous, and their skins too of considerable value, very few are killed. They are like the crows, never to be found when sought with a gun, at other times seen in great numbers. Snares are of no avail, and traps of little; for this animal is as wary as his cousin the fox. Poison by nux vomica, and also by the long moss which grows on the branches of the pine, is the most usual way of destroying them; but few trouble themselves much about it; and in winter, when a poisoned bait can be laid out to advantage, the wolf leaves his summer haunts on the Fjelde, where he does most mischief to the cattle at the