The universal geography : earth and its inhabitants

FAUNA.Illwant of cheap fuel. In these cold regions the growth of timber is slow, so thatthe destruction of the forests causes a general impoverishment of the land.While the Norwegians consume relatively about five times as much wood forlocal purposes as do the French, the product is five times less in an equal area.Hence the recent measures that have been taken for the preservation of forestlands. By the law passed in 1875 proprietors in the northern provinces ofSweden are bound to protect stumps less than 10 inches in thickness at man'sheight, and in the island of Gotland the trade in wood for sale has beeninterdicted.Scandinavian Fauna.The wild animals formerly frequenting the Scandinavian woodlands havebecome rare. A price has been set upon bears, wolves, lynxes, gluttons, as well asfoxes and birds of prey, which are now seldom seen except in remote districts. Theelk has not yet disappeared from the Norwegian highlands, and a herd still roamsnorth of Christiania. The roebuck and stag are also met with in the Norwegianforests, and some of the islands near Bergen and Trondhjem are hunting groundsfor their owners. The aurochs lived in Scania during the stone age, and in theLund Museum there is a specimen still showing a flint wound. The beaver stillsurvives, and the hare, white in winter as the surrounding snows, is common inthe hilly northern districts, while the lemmings (Lem» us Norvegicus) descend inmultitudes from the Norwegian plateaux to the sea. The reindeer is no longerfound wild in the Swedish valleys, though numerous herds roamed till recentlyon the Norwegian uplands, the Telemark mountains, and the Dovre plateau. Thetame reindeer of Lapland is distinct from the species whose remains are occasionall}'found in the peat beds of Scania. The former came probably from the eastwith the nomad immigrants from North Russia.Nearly all the birds of the southern shores of the Baltic are found also inScandinavia, though in lesser numbers. But countless flocks of sea-fowl frequentthe rocky shores and islands of Norway. Some of the Lofoten and Yester Aalengroups bear the name of nyker, or " bird hills," owing to the numbers of penguins,gulls, mews, frequenting them, and from a distance giving the rocks the appearanceof so much trembling vapour.away, and close by resembles the soughing of the winds.The fluttering of their wings is heard milesThe absence of ports orsheltering creeks renders these islands very inaccessible, but in calm weather theyare visited by the hunter. The eider, rare in the southern fiords, is very commonin the North Finmark islands as well as in the Vester Aalen and Lofoten groups,here forming one of the chief resources of the inhabitants.The Norwegian waters abound in fish to a far greater extent than do those ofthe Swedish coast. Of all the Scandinavian inlets the richest in marine life isthe Molde-fiord, between Aalesund and Christianssund, the reputed home of thefabulous " sea serpent."At depths of from 100 to 200 fathoms here are taken theLoia, a species of cod ; the Coregonus silus, a salt-water salmon ; the Spinax niger, apeculiar species of shark, whose skin seems bristling with crystalline needles ;and