A mile, or rather more, from the land, is an island named Bonden, where the bird called Tordmule (_Alca Torda_) lays its eggs every year. These are collected every season by the peasants, who assured me that the bird never lays above one egg in a year, except that egg be taken away, and then she will repeatedly lay more. It seems to me a very curious circumstance, and scarcely possible, that the increase of the species every year should be naturally not more than one. Some persons indeed told me these birds laid two eggs. It is certain that the size of the egg is very large compared with the body of the parent. I only saw some fragments of this bird, but am pretty certain of its being the _Anas arctica_ (_Alca Torda_). In proportion as I approached Westbothland, the height of the mountains, the quantity of large stones, and the extent of the forests, gradually decreased. Fir trees, which of late had been of rare occurrence, became more abundant. Above a mile before we come to Sörmjole, is a river called Angeræn, separating Angermanland from Westbothland. The peasants hereabouts use the following implements, for breaking up the ground of their fallow fields. [Illustration] No. 1 is a plough drawn by a horse. b, b, is a strong thick-backed knife, placed in the middle of the plough, and serving to cut straight lines through the grassy turf, which in the course of five or six years has accumulated on the soil. [Illustration] No. 2 is used immediately afterwards, to cut the clods of turf from their base and turn them up. Of this a is the handle, as in No. 1, held by the ploughman's right hand; b the main beam of the plough; c the part which goes under the surface of the ground, and is terminated in the fore part by the plough-share; d, which is formed obliquely, turning towards the outside, not towards the man who guides the plough; e is placed on the top horizontally, reaching to the base of the plough-share, serving to turn over the clods. The whole is drawn by a horse, the only kind of animal used here in husbandry. No. 3, p. 65, is a hoe, which, when furnished with a handle, serves to pare the earth from the under side of the turfs, after they are turned over by the machine last described. The first year after this operation they sow rye, but in the following season barley, when the turfs are become rotten. WESTERBOTTEN, or WESTBOTHLAND. The ground here is tolerably level; the soil sand, sometimes clay. In some places are large tracts of moss. The whole country, owing to the sand and the moss, is by no means fertile, though it affords a good deal of milk. Barley is the chief corn raised here, rye being very seldom sown, and when any is sown, it is commonly summer rye.