for a subsequent article. The two species of Nebela I will now describe, literally swarmed in every drop of water examined.

N. collaris, which was the most numerous form, has the shell a compressed pyriform, longer than broad, though the proportion varies considerably in different specimens ; indeed so much is this the case, both in form and constitution, that it is rare to find two specimens exactly alike. I give drawings of a few of the chief varieties I have found, but it would be quite impossible to give them all. Some of the forms I have seen are very obscure, and it is extremely difficult to determine their structure; this is particularly the case in those specimens which have both plates, diatoms and sand-grains intermingled in varying proportions, in their construction. Although it is one of the characters of the genus that the basal membrane is colourless, I have on several occasions seen specimens of a yellow colour, which yet exhibited all the other characters of Nebela. Most of those which came under my observation were either empty shells, or the sarcode was encysted, in the form of a round ball; occasionally, in the latter

The other species Nebela flabellum, was not nearly so numerously represented in my collection. I do not think that this form ought to have been elevated to specific rank, the only difference being one of general outline; and I think I have seen a few specimens that fairly connect the two. N. flabellum is broadly pyriform, or spheroidal, compressed, as in the previous species, generally broader than long, though some of the tests are about equal in this respect. There is also a short neck in all the Rossendale specimens. In size, colour, constitution of shell, condition and character of the sarcode and pseudopodia, and in its habitat, like the preceding form.

N. collaris. Fig. 190. Test composed of irregularly rounded plates evenly distributed over the basal membrane. Sarcode with brown food-balls, encysted; a laminated operculum at the mouth.

Fig. 191. A large, handsome form, of large circular plates, with the intervals filled-in with smaller ones; sarcode encysted.

Fig. 192. Small empty test, entirely of small, round plates.

Fig. 195.-N. flabellum (large oval plates, regularly
disposed).

case the mouth of the shell was closed by a rude operculum, I presume of chitinoid material mixed with ejected food, generally in layers. The shell itself, has, I take it in all cases, a basal membrane, superimposed on, or embedded in which are numbers of silicious plates, round, oval, or rod-like, variously but symmetrically arrayed. These are of different sizes, but this has no sort of relationship with the size of the shell, as a large shell may have small discs, and a small shell large discs. The drawings will give an idea of this variation, so it will be unnecessary for me to enlarge upon this point. The sarcode is colourless, but there are frequently numerous yellow or brown food-balls. The nucleus is impossible to make out, owing to the constitution of the shell, and the coloured food-matters; but two or three contracting vesicles may be seen in favourable specimens. The pseudopodia are finger-like, and rarely more than two or three in number. Leidy gives the average size as of an inch long, broad, and thick; most of my specimens were about that size, though occasional ones were as large as, and others as small as the 3 in length.

Fig. 196.-N. flabellum (of yellow chitinous membrane covered with hexagonal pit).

offers, to rob the much-enduring nomad by shooting one of his deer, perchance from a boat, as it is grazing on the margin of a river or lake. Yet more persistently, if less fatally hostile, is the broms, a fly whose larva, hatched from eggs laid in the deer's skin, fill it with perforations; and even worse are the attacks of the myggs, or mosquitoes, whose hosts, armed with tormenting, blood-imbibing stings, as the summer advances gather in clouds, and drive the herds and their masters up to snowy altitudes for refuge and relief. The eagle, soaring on ampler wing, snatches not rarely a fawn for its nested young; the ponderous bear, lying in ambush, secures at intervals an elder of the herd; and far more frequently, by similarly lurking under covert, the crafty, insatiable glutton, with claws and teeth hard and sharp as steel, succeeds in springing upon the neck of an antlered victim and drinking its blood. Next to the wolf, and even in some times and places more than the wolf, it is the most destructive northern beast of prey; for it is, more than other beasts, the plague of the cattle-farmer as well as the Lapp. Nevertheless, the wolf is the arch-enemy of the reindeer, and as such is held in utter detestation by the Lapp, who seizes every chance of wreaking vengeance on the ravager of his herds. According to old Lappish traditions, this ravenous beast was not created by a beneficent being, but by Perkel the devil, who endowed it, above all other animals, with swiftness of foot. God, however, to check its speed, added the bushy tail, by throwing after it a twig of spruce fir.

The bitter exasperation of the Lapp against the wolf is not to be wondered at when we consider the labour and the loss to which from time immemorial his hereditary enemy has subjected him, and still subjects. Summer and winter, day and night, he with his faithful dog must be on the alert, guarding the herd. "Indescribable," says Professor Früs, "what the Lapp endures thus watching. When darkness is deepest, cold bitterest, snowstorm fearfulest, he must be on the watch. At least every quarter of an hour he must take his round, hallooing, screaming, and making all manner of loud outcries; for thus the wolf, though only when not very hungry, can be kept aloof." Should he once sleep at his post, the wolf, more watchful than himself, would presently wet his fangs with the blood of a deer. A single wolf, slaughtering like a fiend incarnate, for the love of slaughter, far beyond the needs of appetite, has been known to kill thirty deer in one night; and, as stated by the above-named author (En Sommer i Finmarken, Russisk Lapland ög Nordkarelen), from two or three, up to that number, may be lost in a night notwithstanding the strictest watch; while possibly a man, rich in the evening, with several hundred reindeer, may in the morning be a beggar; his herd destroyed, hunted over precipices, and dispersed far and wide by a

numerous pack of wolves, some falling into the hands of thieves, and the rest of the living never, by the most strenuous efforts, to be wholly collected together again.

Consideration of such facts leads us to excuse the implacable animosity, if not the barbarous cruelty, directed by the Lapp against the wolf. Not only does he give no quarter to the enemy when it falls under his power alive, but, like a cat playing with a mouse, he tortures it awhile before killing it outright. Fleet as the wolf is on firm ground-and its name in Lappish is synonymous with quick-when deep and loose snow impedes its progress, it is often outrun by the gliding Lapp, who thereupon strikes with his heavy staff a blow on the small of its back, which compels it to sit instantly and immovably on the ground. A sudden thrust at the heart, with the spear-end of the staff, would now terminate the creature's misery; but that were scarce sufficient gratification for the heated and exasperated pursuer's love of revenge. If there are other wolves to be followed, he perhaps leaves his victim awhile, secured by its broken back, and renews the chase; if not, he awaits his lagging comrades, and with them, when they gather round the deliquent in a ring, arraign him in open court, constituting themselves accusers, witnesses and judges all in one. His doom is predetermined, and they have only, as executioners, to enjoy the pleasures of the wild justice called revenge. They denounce him in the most violent of abusive terms; they beat and pommel him, and prick him with the point of their spears; they swear at him; they ban him with the most fearful curses their language, copious in such phraseology, can supply; they upbraid him with all the mischief he and his progenitors throughout all time have ever wrought; and finally, amid shouts of exultation, they put him to death in a manner most calculated to inflict severest pain.

Such, till recently, was a common practice among the Mountain-Lapps: but the present writer was informed a few years since, by a Swedish clergyman, on the authority of a section of those nomads, with whom at intervals he comes in contact, that the custom was greatly on the decrease, passing away before the more genial influences and superior enlightenment, which for some time past have been brought to bear on the raw, untutored minds of these hardy, isolated children of the mountain wilds.

The Lapp rarely shoots the wolf, in Sweden never; he prefers, as a surer weapon than the gun, the use of the staff with which he propels himself on his snow-shoes; and which, to serve both purposes, is formed of a very stout and straight branch of birchtree, barked and smoothed, provided--in one case seen by the writer-at the upper end with a long, pointed iron spike, firmly secured by a large and strong brass ferule, enclosed in a sheaf of reindeer horn; and at the lower end with an iron spike eight

inches in length, being two inches shorter than the pike at the other end. In pursuit of the wolf with such a weapon the hardy, active and enduring skidrunner, gliding and bounding on his skidor, or snowshoes, often strains his energies to a degree which injures health and shortens life. It is a great honour among the Lapps to outrun and destroy a wolf; and among the Lapp mountains, as among the seats of learning, and the mouths of cannon, there are spirits who leagerly seek the bubble reputation, and are sensitive to the spur of fame. All Lapps, and most, if not all, the peasants of Lapland, man and woman, can run on skids-the narrow, flat snow-shoes, or skates, of rather thin but tough wood, from ten to sixteen feet in length, with upturned points in front; but, though all are adroit at their use, it is not every man, and perhaps no man except a Lapp, who could put salt on the bushy tail of a wolf, or could crack his backbone with the skidstaff, as impelled by terror he flits at his utmost possible speed.

Such chase can only be successfully accomplished on the lower forested tracts, where the wolf's fleet limbs are hampered by sinking into the deep, loose snow, usually lying there during winter; or when the crust, which sometimes forms over it, is too thin to bear his weight without breaking. Then let him beware of showing his grim visage, or his spoor, in the neighbourhood of the herds he has stealthily followed from the mountains. Soon as seen or denoted, by the vigilant watchers and their dogs, notice that the wolf is afoot is carried with all speed to the tent, or tents, and the skidrunners are quickly ready for the hunt. "The wolf," says H. A. Widmark, in a communication to Professor von Düben's important work on Lapland and the Lapps, "from his great capability of persistent exertion, taxes to the utmost the pursuer's powers and pretensions. He must be followed almost continuously day and night, and so constantly disturbed, that at last he becomes exhausted and outrun. Many Lapps therefore take part in a wolf-hunt, although only one or another is properly the hunter. In Jokkmokk at present there are only two who can hold out till the wolf is reached. The ability to "ränne upp" a wolf is not given to many Lapps, and they who have the luck to possess it, destroy their health soon enough by these feats. Throughout the whole day to have no rest, to cast off, for lightness sake, while running one article of clothing after the other, leaving them to be picked up by less rapid pursuers, and to suffer, perhaps, dis-appointment after all effort-such is the wolf-hunter's experience. For it often happens, that when the hunter has quite nearly approached the wolf, he is obliged to relinquish the chase, because his game has had the good fortune to attain at that moment, the open treeless mountain-lands, where the snow is firm, and towards which, when it is not too distant, The always steers his course, thence keeping watch for

another opportunity of approaching the herds. To devote himself for several successive days, even weeks sometimes, to this severe exertion, craves a power of endurance on the part of the hunter, which is rare indeed. His recompense consists in the enjoyment experienced when, after so many arduous toils, he at last thrusts his spear into the body of his foe; but also in that regard, that acknowledgment of merit awarded him by all his kin."

The work entitled Hos Lappbônder, by P. A. Lindholm, also contains a graphic description of a wolf-hunt in the south of Swedish Lapland, a translation of which may interest the reader. In late autumn perhaps, traces of the depredating wolf have at intervals been observed in proximity to the herds; though in consequence of strict watch, loud outcries of dogs and men, and vulpine knowledge of the penetrative quality of the herdsman's spear, little or no mischief has hitherto been done. But prevention is better than cure-if cure there could be for a slaughtered reindeer. "Soon," therefore, 'as deep snow falls, the quickest skidrunners in the district accoutre themselves for a general hunt. The wolf meantime suspects danger, and takes a start, not seldom of fourteen miles. That helps him little ; his spoor is seen in the snow, and soon his pursuers are within hearing. Now it behoves him to flee for his life and his skin; and that he does at the best. Over stocks and stones, through densest forest, and the ruggedest tracts, usually traversible only at the gentlest pace, the hunt flits now at an astonishing speed. When the wolf has not recently fed, he runs not only with rapidity, but also with great persistence; nevertheless here his efforts fall short of the emergency. His pursuers are no common men. That train of short-grown mortals, clad in kilted coats and sugar-loaf caps rustles past like a gust of wind. One verily grows dizzy at the sight of them, speeding like the flight of an arrow, down steep hills; bounding from fathom-high escarpments, or rushing through the closest thickets, where tree-branches permit no cap to be kept on the head. In the course of this onward rush the party becomes separated; all make superhuman efforts, but one naturally wins and takes the lead; each of the rest striving to come as little as possible in the rear of him, and especially to avoid the dishonour of being last. Sometimes, but very seldom, a Lapland peasant joins in the hunt; but his class rarely attain the proficiency in skidrunning possessed by the Lapp.

"His mortal enemy is soon in the power of the fore. most hunter, with no mercy to expect; so he turns towards him with a grin, while a cloud of warm vapour issues from his throat. The Lapp laughs at his victim's spite, and gives him in return a violent blow on the loins with his skidstaff, which seats him on the snow. If the wolf was not alone in the chase, he kills him at once and pursues his companions; but otherwise he sets himself before the wounded

animal, and gravely dilates on all the delinquencies he and his relatives have perpetrated against the Lapps; then, at the end of this denunciatory sermon, he puts the culprit to death. It has occasionally happened that the Lapp at the moment of striking the disabling blow, has himself also dropped down, in a swoon caused by over-exertion; in which case the wolf, though not respited, is saved the extra infliction of a death-sermon, the victor's comrades being sufficiently occupied with his restoration to conscious life.

"The wolf is not stripped of his skin till all the hunters arrive at the place of his death. Then the slayer, beginning the operation, flays the head; the second in at the death flays the next; and so on till it comes to the last, who gets leave to draw the skin from its tail.

"After the completion of the flaying, the hunters return in the order they held at the end of the chase; the foremost bearing the skin as a trophy of honour; and on arriving at home they are entertained with the best."

In Norway, as appears from Professor Früs's account of a wolf-hunt, the skidstaff of the hunter is not commonly furnished with a spear-head; and the wolf, as he sits with his back broken by a blow with the staff, is after due denunciation of himself and his forefathers, finally despatched with the knife which every Lapp and peasant carries suspended from his belt; or by a ball from the rifle which the Lapp hunter there frequently carries on his back. To strike at the head of the wolf with the skidstaff, says Friis, is of no avail, for the wolf knows how to parry and seize it with his teeth. Yet O. R. Hederström, in the Swedish Sporting-Society's Journal for 1879, states that in Tornelapmark, the most northerly part of Swedish Lapland, an inch-thick skidstaff, without spear, is the only weapon used; and that a blow or two with it, after it has broken his back, is usually enough to kill a wolf-there a cowardly animal, rarely showing fight in self-defence. But, as Malm, quoted by Dühen, relates, a slightly wounded wolf will sometimes turn upon his assailant, especially if he chances to stumble; then a fierce fight ensues, in which however, the Lapp's thick skin coat affords better protection against the wolf's fangs than the wolf's against the Lapp's strong, sharp-pointed knife.

Outside the boundaries of Lapland wolves are not numerous in Sweden; nor even within the lower forested tracts those boundaries enclose, except during winter, after some portion of them have followed the reindeer herds thither from the Lapp mountains, which are their proper resort. They infest chiefly the three northernmost provinces of Sweden, Norrbotten, Vesterbotten, and Ostersund, south of which they are rarely found. Ostersund, the most southern of these provinces, includes the wild mountainous tracts of Jemtland and Herjedal, and

though ranged by a few Lapps along its Norwegian border, has no part of its area nominally included within Lapland proper, yet is apparently far more infested by wolves than Vesterbotten, whose lapp-marks adjoin it to the north. But these, though of great extent, constitute the smaller part of Swedish Lapland; and it is in the lappmarks of NorrbottenPite, Sule, and especially Torne-that both wolves and reindeer most numerously abound. Thus in Norrbotten's län, and of course chiefly in its threelappmarks, there were, according to the premiums paid by the State for the destruction of predacious. animals, during the four years of 1876 to 1879inclusive, sixty-nine wolves killed; in Ostersund's, fifty-six; in Vesterbotten's, sixteen; and throughout the rest of the kingdom, only six, comprising a total of one hundred and forty-seven. During the five years of 1881-1885, the number destroyed throughout all Sweden was one hundred and seventy-one ; and during 1871-1875, two hundred and twentynine; but during the ten years terminating with 1865, no fewer than four hundred and thirty-seven wolves were killed in the province of Norrbotten alone. There also in the course of the same period seven hundred and eighty-seven gluttons, and two hundred and fifty-seven bears were destroyed; while on the other hand, the number of reindeer slaughtered in the same time and place by such beasts of prey, was stated at about five thousand.

The part of Norrbotten most exposed to the ravages of wolves is Tornis lappmark, which comprises the two parishes of Enontekis and Jukkasjärvi, where, says Herr Hederström, the Jagtmaster or chief ranger of the district, the wolf may be considered to have its especial resort. This wide territory, the largest of the lappmarks, with an area of 7612 square miles, consists mainly of high, bleak, treeless and comparatively level table-land, ranged over during winter by nomadic Lapps, with their great herds of reindeer, but vacated on the approach of summer by both, who pass over into Norway, and remain there till the autumn, thus reversing the usual custom of the more southerly Swedish Lapps, who during. summer graze their herds on the mountains, and towards winter begin their descent into the forestsbelow, where they remain till spring. In winter therefore, the high lands of Tornis are numerously bespread with the returned herds; the number of reindeer belonging to it exceeding that of any other lappmark; its share of the 123,000 which alli Norrbotten contained in 1879 being 55,000, although Tornis forms only a fourth part of the entire area of the province's lappmarks; while the total number of reindeer throughout the whole of Swedish Lapland has been estimated at only 220,800.. This. abundance of reindeer during winter in Tornis. lappmark is evidently a chief reason why their natural enemies, the wolves, also abound there at that time, for they numerously follow the herds both

into Norway and back. They are favoured also by the nature of the country, over whose unsheltered plateaus the winds sweep with a force which compresses the snow, so that it gives firm footing to the wolf, and thus precludes the possibility of overtaking it on snow-skates. Also the Lapps are accounted incompetent marksmen and their rifles equally inefficient.

Encouraged by such conditions, and alsɔ, it appears, by the apathy and neglect of the Lapps, in 1879 the number of wolves on this tract, or part of it, had so greatly increased that, as stated by Herr Hederström, they ran in packs from fifteen to forty, and destroyed thousands of reindeer, as they had done during the previous two years-packs more numerous and destruction greater than had been heard of for some years before. The report of enquiry respecting the prevalence of wolves in Enontekis, made about the same time at the instance of the Jagtmaster, supplies some interesting particulars on the subject of these ravenous animals. Six years before few wolves were found there, but they had since greatly increased, and it was estimated that at least a hundred prowled over the parish; packs of three to fifteen had been seen since the middle of September.

They remain within the parish all the year through, following the reindeer herds on their way to Norway up to the mountain ridge, but not over it; supporting themselves bounteously during summer on other prey, in the valley of Kumajoki, close under the ridge; forming quite distinct footpaths there, and extending themselves along the banks of Könkämä river quite down to Kellotijarvi, a lake about sixteen miles above Enontekis church. It is said that lairs of wolves are sometimes found burrowed in the sandhills, like those of the fox.

During the three preceding years it was calculated that each year over a thousand reindeer had been killed in the parish by wolves. The flesh of a deer thus killed acquires a taste so very disagreeable that people are very reluctant to eat it. Yet it is said by Castren, quoted in Düben's work, that the Fjelllapps of Finland have no need through all the winter to slaughter deer for their own use; they eat only the reindeer killed and in part eaten by the wolves, which choose the daintiest portions, and especially the blood, which those Lapps, like the wolves themselves, prefer to drink raw.

When the wolf, says the writer of the report, on giving chase has overtaken a reindeer, he seizes it by the thigh, and soon as its speed slackens, grips it in a twinkling by the throat, presently causing its death, and consequent fall. He then tears out and eats its tongue; next he strips the flesh from the loins nearest the root of the tail, and after eating that continues his repast on the rest. If very hungry, and undisturbed, he gorges the whole deer, its horns included.

The reindeer, as stated by Düben, has the worst

chance of escape from the wolf on dark autumn nights when the surface of the snow is sufficiently frozen to bear the weight of the wolf, but not of the deer. The assailant, however, instead of flight, sometimes meets with resistance and a repulse; examples being given of stags, and especially does with calves, goring a wolf to death; or even successfully defending themselves with horns and hoofs against a couple of bloodthirsty foes. Indeed it is said that the wolf seldom ventures to rush upon a compact herd, but when fear has dispersed it, pursues a deer that has separated from the rest.

Wolves do not always remain continuously in the same locality, but in many cases remove at intervals from one tract to another, so that the Lapps may sometimes, in certain parts, relax considerably the constant watch of their herds. Östgaard, a Norwegian writer, says that wolves sometimes flock together in great numbers, and especially when about to migrate to another forest tract. a gathering is there called a wolf-skred.

Such

Except under the pinch of hunger, the wolf is cowardly; as Bishop Pontoppidan remarks, he is like the arch-enemy of mankind, resist the brute and he will flee from you; a cow or even a goat, by such action has put him to flight. It is very rarely, therefore, that he ventures to attack a man; but it is recorded that a soldier, when returning from parade across the ice over the great lake Storsjö, in Jemtland, was killed and eaten by wolves, his skeleton being found several days afterwards. Previous to that occurrence, namely in 1821, nine or ten children suffered the same fate in Dalecarlia and Gestrictland, which adjoins it, from one and the same wolf, which it was believed had been kept tame. Cases of children being killed by wolves appear to be more frequent in Finland; two were reported by the newspapers in 1881, as occurring within the province of Abo; the one, that of a boy ten years of age, who had been sent to fetch a horse from an enclosure within a forest adjacent to the cottage where he dwelt.

Much superstition has been associated with the wolf by Scandinavians as well as Lapps. The malign glare of his eyes, his grin of rage and fear, his reputed habit of tearing the dead from their graves, his revels on battle-fields, and the strange, unearthly howlings to which he gives utterance on dark winter nights, all suggest the idea of a fiendish nature, a being pertaining to the nether world. In the old Norse mythology, he played, in accordance with this character, a conspicuous part. Odin, the god of battles, was attended by two wolves, and doomed at length to be devoured by the great Fenriswolf (offspring of Loki, the Evil One), when the flames of Ragnärök consumed the world. Two ravenous wolves, personifications of the dark side of nature, born of a hag who dwelt in Iron-wood, the abode of witches, constantly pursued the sun and