The common seal is very frequent ; and Arctic seals visit the northern coasts; among these the harp, or Greenland, seal is believed to be particularly destructive to the fisheries. A large number of the best European food-fisheries occur along the coasts, including cod, herring, mackerel, sprat and flat-fish. Vari ous species of whales visit the coast ; the most important is the rorqual, or finner—the largest is the blue whale, which appears off the coast of Finmark from June to August. Other finners are the true fanner and the smaller fish-whale. The most impor tant of other types of whales are the bottle-nose, the humpback and the caaing whale. Of freshwater fish the Salmonidae are by far the most valuable. Next to these, perch, pike, grayling and minnow are most common.
South Norway is richer than west Norway in insects, and north Norway has numerous characteristic Arctic types.
Norway is much frequented by British anglers. The Salmonidae have penetrated considerable distances inland, and though the trout is the only one to reach many of the upland lakes yet it is very abundant there. (Most of the owners of water rights have a full appreciation of the value of good fishing to sportsmen, espe cially when netting rights are given up for the sake of rod fishing.) Climate.—The striking and unique feature of the climate of Norway is the presence of the largest positive temperature anom aly on the surface of the globe, which results in such unusual conditions as average temperatures within the Arctic circle which are higher than those of places farther east and 20° of latitude farther south. Again, Hammerfest, a thriving settlement of over 3,00o inhabitants, is actually north of King William's Land, which witnessed the tragedy of the Franklin polar exploration party. This temperature anomaly is consequent on the warm water and air-drift across the Atlantic ocean on to the shores of Norway. February is the coldest month, and south-east Norway then has a mean temperature of below 32° F (Oslo 23.9°), but the coldest parts in this area are the Glommen valley, between Tonset and Roros (near the Swedish border). At the latter place (altitude 2,067 ft.) the February mean is 12.2° and an absolute minimum of approximately 80° F of frost has been recorded. Even this intense cold has been exceeded at stations near the Norway Sweden boundary in Lapland. A somewhat unusual phenome non is that lower-lying stations occasionally show lower winter averages than upland stations near to them; e.g., Tonset I I° average against Roros 12.2°. Tromso, Skudenes (on an island north of Stavanger) and Bergen have averages of 25.0°, and 33.6° respectively. The number of days on which frost occurs varies between 6o at Skudenes and 240 in certain parts of Finmark; North Cape has about 190. The fjords are not
penetrated by the cold water from the open ocean and are always ice-free except for patches along shallow coastal stretches during unusually severe winters. Summer temperatures range between slightly below 50° in the extreme north (Tromso 51.8° F July average), and 6o.6° at Oslo in July. Roros, with much greater altitude, has average in the same month. The south-east of Norway is the warmest part in summer. At Bergen and Sku denes the warmest month is August (57.9° average for each). Absolute maxima are high, and the following have been recorded: Skudenes, 84° ; Bergen 86° ; Oslo 93° ; and even Karasjok, in Lap land, has recorded 88°. The annual range increases from west to east generally and from south to north along the coast.
Though the south-west wind is usually prevalent over Norway and very marked in summer yet the winter high pressure area causes outflowing winds. These may be roughly classified thus:— Gales are frequent on the west coast, averaging three to four per month in winter and about one to two per month in summer. In the interior and east gales are comparatively rare. Gales from the south-west bringing rain are the most common; next in fre quency are gales from the north-west bringing snow. Calm weather is rare on the west coast but frequent in the interior. December and January are the stormiest months. Hailstones and thunderstorms are not of frequent occurrence in any part of Norway.
The number of days on which rain or snow falls is greatest on the north-west and north coasts, least in the south-east dis tricts and the interior of Finmark. In the former area, pre cipitation occurs on about 20o days in the year. On Dovre fjeld and the south-east coast the average is about ioo days. Snowfall occurs least frequently in the south (e.g., at Mandal, 25 snowy days out of 116 on which precipitation occurs), increasing to so at Oslo, and Dovre fjeld, to 90 at Vara., and to ioo at the North cape. Hence in the north and in the upland tracts, snow occurs at least as frequently as rain. Snow may fall in any month on the coast as far south as the Lofotens. The amount of precipitation exceeds loo in. per annum in the mountains a few miles from the coast north and south of Sognefjord. On the outer islands there is a slight decrease; inland the decrease is rapid and great. In the extreme south of the country the average is about 39 in. There is a diminution eastward along the north coast and a further rapid decrease towards the northern interior, where the average is 16 in., but strongly marked local variations are observed.