The little alpine variety of the Ptarmigan (_Tetrao Lagopus_) was now accompanied by its young. I caught one of these, upon which the hen ran so close to me, that I could easily have taken her also. She kept continually jumping round and round me; but I thought it a pity to deprive the tender brood of their mother, neither would my compassion for the mother allow me long to detain her offspring, which I restored to her in safety.
After having walked four or five miles in the course of the night, I went to sleep in the morning in one of the cottages of the country.
The inhabitants, sixteen in number, lay there all naked. They washed themselves by rubbing the body downwards, not upwards. They washed their dishes with their fingers, squirting water out of their mouths upon the spoon, and then poured into them boiled reindeer's milk, which was as thick as common milk mixed with eggs, and had a strong flavour. Some thousands of reindeer came home in the morning, which were milked by the men as well as the women, who kneeled down on one knee.
From the top of the head of some of these reindeer I took out the maggots which trouble them so much. I observed here in plenty the large fly with a yellow neck, and yellow segments of the body, (_Oestrus Tarandi_,) which probably is the same insect (in a perfect state), as I judge by the length of the legs.
My hosts gave me _missen_ to eat; that is, whey, after the curd is separated from it, coagulated by boiling, which renders it very firm. Its flavour was good, but the washing of the spoon took away my appetite, as the master of the house wiped it dry with his fingers, whilst his wife cleaned the bowl, in which milk had been, in a similar manner, licking her finger after every stroke.
I also tasted some _jumo_, which they mixed with reindeer's milk, but it did not please me.
This day I gathered the following plants. (The numbers are continued from _p. 291_.)
31. _Saxifraga_ with a tuberous root, a simple stem flowering at the summit, and bulbs in the bosoms of the leaves. (_S. cernua._) This has much resemblance to the common Saxifrage, (_S. granulata_,) but bears only one flower at the top of the stem, which is pendulous before it opens. The petals and stamens are white. In the bosom of each leaf are about ten naked anther-like little heads (or buds), which grow out into embryos of future plants. It inhabits watery places.