The fields in this part of the country are excellent, being extensive and level, the soil consisting of sandy and argillaceous earth. The crops are abundant, provided the corn be not injured by frost, as it had been the preceding year. Owing to this misfortune, I found bread made of spruce fir bark at present in general use. The Buckbean (_Menyanthes trifoliata_) is very seldom used, on account of its bitterness[44].
[44] Linnæus in the _Flora Lapponica, ed. 2. 53_, tells us that "in times of extreme scarcity the roots of this plant, dried and powdered, are mixed with a small quantity of meal, and serve to make the miserable bread of the poorer settlers in Lapland, which is extremely bitter and detestable." In the same work, _p. 259_, he describes an excellent kind of bread made of the roots of _Calla palustris_, which though acrid when fresh, become wholesome if dried, and boiled afterwards in water, as is the case with its near relation our common _Arum_, and the _Jatropha Manihot_, or Casava, of the West Indies.
In the evening I strolled out from the post-house at Bumoen towards the sea side in search of natural productions. The brooks close to the shore swarmed with innumerable little oval _Notonectæ_ (Boat-flies), no bigger than nits (_N. minutissima_); as well as with the lesser ovate _Dytiscus_, shaded with grey, and known by its blunt cloven _sternum_. (_D. cinereus._) On the beach multitudes of black insects without wings, and half covered with shelly cases, were running about. (Probably _Cimex littoralis_.) There were also abundance of _Ephemeræ_ (May-flies), all which had two prominent fore feet, and three bristles at the tail. I caught several, thus rendering their transient existence still shorter. They were of two species, one larger, of a blackish hue, with dark clouded wings (_E. vulgata_); the other about half as large, with a blackish thorax, and white wings. (This does not agree with any species in the _Fauna Suecica_.)
Not far from the shore, on a small elevation, where the trees and underwood had lately been burnt down, grew the Strawberry-leaved Bramble (_Rubus arcticus_) with jagged petals, a remarkable and elegant variety. (See _Fl. Lapp. t. 5. f. 2_.)