43. A small Aster, with one solitary white flower. (Erigeron uniflorum.) It has the calyx of the Amellus, the flower of a daisy, white with a yellow disk.
44. A viviparous grass, Poa. (Rather Festuca vivipara.)
45. Juncus with a sharp rigid point. (Juncus, n. 116. Fl. Lapp.)
46. A Catchfly which is not viscid, with the flowers collected into a tuft. (Lychnis alpina.)
47. A smooth Cerastium, agreeing in
every respect with the large-flowered one, except the hairiness and hoary aspect of the leaves. (C. alpinum, a smooth variety.)
I observed every where about the sides of the hills holes dug by the Lemming Rat. (Mus Lemmus.) Hares are grey in summer upon the alps.
No herb or tree on the highest parts of these alps attains more than a quarter of an ell in height, though in the valleys the same species may perhaps be two or three feet high. Birch trees, which however are very scarce, creep in a manner under the earth, throwing up the tips of their branches here and there to the height of a quarter of an ell. Tender shoots of this kind sometimes conceal a very knotty depressed stem.
In the evening, and indeed till the night was far advanced, we sought for one of the Laplanders' huts, but to no purpose. Tracts made by the reindeer were plentiful enough in the marshy grounds, which we followed sometimes in one direction, sometimes in another, without their leading us
to what we were in search of. I had walked so much that I could hardly stand on my legs, and was near fainting with fatigue, so that I lay down, resolving rather to endure the cold and boisterous wind, than proceed any further this night. At length the Laplander and his servant, who were my guides, found some dung of the reindeer. One of them took it up, and after squeezing it in his hand and smelling at it, gave it to his companion to smell also. He was even desirous that I should take a snuff at it. By its freshness they were rejoiced to discover that a Laplander with his herd had but recently left this spot, and they accordingly pursued a track which was here and there discernible in the snow. After we had proceeded half a mile, we met with the object of our search, who had removed but the day before, so that I had now an opportunity of taking some repose.