One of the oldest accounts of the Samoyeds which I know is that of Stephen Burrough from 1556. It is given in Hakluyt (1st edition, page 318). In the narrative of the voyage of the Searchthrift we read:—

"On Saturday the 1st August 1556 I went ashore,[56] and there saw three morses that they (Russian hunters) had killed: they held one tooth of a morse, which was not great, at a roble, and one white beare skin at three robles and two robles: they further told me, that there were people called Samoeds on the great Island, and that they would not abide them nor us, who have no houses, but only coverings made of Deerskins, set ouer them with stakes: they are men expert in shooting, and have great plenty of Deere. On Monday the 3rd we weyed and went roome with another Island, which was five leagues (15') East-north-east from us: and there I met againe with Loshak,[57] and went on shore with him, and he brought me to a heap of Samoeds idols, which were in number above 300, the worst and the most unartificiall worke that ever I saw: the eyes and mouthes of sundrie of them were bloodie, they had the shape of men, women, and children, very grosly wrought, and that which they had made for other parts, was also sprinkled with blood. Some of their idols were an olde sticke with two or three notches, made with a knife in it. There was one of their sleds broken and lay by the heape of idols, and there I saw a deers skinne which the foules had spoyled: and before certaine of their idols blocks were made as high as their mouthes, being all bloody, I thought that to be the table whereon they offered their sacrifice: I saw also the instruments whereupon they had roasted flesh, and as farre as I could perceiue, they make the fire directly under the spit. Their boates are made of Deers skins, and when they come on shoare they cary their boates with them upon their backs: for their cariages they haue no other beastes to serve them but Deere only. As for bread and corne they have none, except the Russes bring it to them: their knowledge is very base for they know no letter."

Giles Fletcher, who in 1588 was Queen Elizabeth's ambassador to the Czar, writes in his account of Russia of the Samoyeds in the following way:—[58]

"The Samoyt hath his name (as the Russe saith) of eating himselfe: as if in times past they lived as the Cannibals, eating one another. Which they make more probable, because at this time they eate all kind of raw flesh, whatsoeuer it bee, euen the very carrion that lyeth in the ditch. But as the Samoits themselves will say, they were called Samoie, that is, of themselves, as though they were Indigenae, or people bred upon that very soyle that never changed their seate from one place to another, as most Nations have done. They are clad in Seale-skinnes, with the hayrie side outwards downe as low as the knees, with their Breeches and Netherstocks of the same, both men and women. They are all Blacke hayred, naturally beardless. And therefore the Men are hardly discerned from the Women by their lookes: saue that the Women weare a locke of hayre down along both their eares."

In nearly the same way the Samoyeds are described by G. DE VEER in his account of Barents' second voyage in 1595. Barents got good information from the Samoyeds as to the navigable water to the eastward, and always stood on a good footing with them, excepting on one occasion when the Samoyeds went down to the Dutchmen's boats and took back an idol which had been carried off from a large sacrificial mound.

]

The Samoyeds have since formed the subject of a very extensive literature, of which however it is impossible for me to give any account here. Among other points their relations to other races have been much discussed. On this subject I have received from my learned friend, the renowned philologist Professor AHLQUIST of Helsingfors the following communication:—

The Samoyeds are reckoned, along with the Tungoose, the Mongolian, the Turkish and the Finnish-Ugrian races, to belong to the so-called Altaic or Ural-Altaic stem. What is mainly characteristic of this stem, is that all the languages occurring within it belong to the so-called agglutinating type. For in these languages the relations of ideas are expressed exclusively by terminations or suffixes—inflections, prefixes and prepositions, as expressive of relations, being completely unknown to them. Other peculiarities characteristic of the Altaic languages are the vocal harmony occurring in many of them, the inability to have more than one consonant in the beginning of a word, and the expression of the plural by a peculiar affix, the case terminations being the same in the plural as in the singular. The affinity between the different branches of the Altaic stem is thus founded mainly on analogy or resemblance in the construction of the languages, while the different tongues in the material of language (both in the words themselves and in the expression of relations) show a very limited affinity or none at all. The circumstance that the Samoyeds for the present have as their nearest neighbours several Finnish-Ugrian races (Lapps, Syrjaeni, Ostjaks, and Voguls), and that these to a great extent carry on the same modes of life as themselves, has led some authors to assume a close affinity between the Samoyeds and the Fins and the Finnish races in general. The speech of the two neighbouring tribes however affords no ground for such a supposition. Even the language of the Ostjak, which is the most closely related to that of the Samoyeds, is separated heaven-wide from it and has nothing in common with it, except a small number of borrowed words (chiefly names of articles from the Polar nomad's life), which the Ostjak has taken from the language of his northern neighbour. With respect to their language, however, the Samoyeds are said to stand at a like distance from the other branches of the stem in question. To what extent craniology or the modern anthropology can more accurately determine the affinity-relationship of the Samoyed to other tribes, is still a question of the future.



[Footnote 53: "Letter of Richard Finch to Sir Thomas Smith, Governor; and to the rest of the Worshipful Companie of English Merchants, trading into Russia." Purchas, iii. p. 534. ]

[Footnote 54: Mr. Serebrenikoff writes Samodin instead of Samoyed, considering the latter name incorrect. For Samoyed means "self-eater," while Samodin denotes "an individual," "one who cannot be mistaken for any other," and, as the Samoyeds never were cannibals, Mr. Serebrenikoff gives a preference to the latter name, which is used by the Russians at Chabarova, and appears to be a literal translation of the name which the Samoyeds give themselves. I consider it probable, however, that the old tradition of man-eaters (androphagi) living in the north, which originated with Herodotus, and was afterwards universally adopted in the geographical literature of the middle ages, reappears in a Russianised form in the name "Samoyed." (Compare what is quoted further on from Giles Fletcher's narrative). ]

[Footnote 55: This name, which properly denotes a coarse likeness, has passed into the Swedish, the word bulvan being one of the few which that language has borrowed from the Russian. ]

[Footnote 56: Probably on one of the small islands near Vaygats. ]

[Footnote 57: A Russian hunter who had been serviceable to Stephen Burrough in many ways. ]

[Footnote 58: Treatise of Russia and the adjoining Regions, written by Doctor Giles Fletcher, Lord Ambassador from the late Queen, Everglorious Elizabeth, to Theodore, then Emperor of Russia. A.D. 1588. Purchas, iii. p. 413. ]

[Footnote 59: A still more extraordinary idea of the Samoyeds, than that which this woodcut gives us, we get from the way in which they are mentioned in the account of the journey which the Italian Minorite, Joannes de Plano Carpini, undertook in High Asia in the years 1245-47 as ambassador from the Pope to the mighty conqueror of the Mongolian hordes. In this book of travels it is said that Occodai Khan, Chingis Khan's son, after having been defeated by the Hungarians and Poles, turned towards the north, conquered the Bascarti, i.e. the Great Hungarians, then came into collision with the Parositi—who had wonderfully small stomachs and mouths, and did not eat flesh, but only boiled it and nourished themselves by inhaling the steam—and finally came to the Samogedi, who lived only by the chase and had houses and clothes of skin, and to a land by the ocean, where there were monsters with the bodies of men, the feet of oxen and the faces of dogs (Relation des Mongols ou Tartares, par le frere Jean du Plan de Carpin, publ. par M. d'Avezac, Paris 1838, p. 281. Compare Ramusio, Delle navigationi e viaggi, ii. 1583, leaf 236). At another place in the same work it is said that "the land Comania has on the north immediately after Russia, the Mordvini and Bileri, i.e. the Great Bulgarians, the Bascarti, i.e. the Great Hungarians, then the Parositi and Samogedi, who are said to have the faces of dogs" (Relation des Mongols, p. 351. Ramusio, ii., leaf 239). ]



CHAPTER III.

From the Animal World of Novaya Zemlya—The Fulmar Petrel— The Rotge or Little Auk—Bruennich's Guillemot—The Black Guillemot—The Arctic Puffin—The Gulls—Richardson's Skua— the Tern—Ducks and Geese—The Swan—Waders—The Snow Bunting—The Ptarmigan—The Snowy Owl—The Reindeer—The Polar Bear—The Mountain Fox—The Lemming—Insects— The Walrus—The Seal—Whales.

If we do not take into account the few Samoyeds who of recent years have settled on Novaya Zemlya or wander about during summer on the plains of Vaygats Island, all the lands which in the old world have formed the field of research of the Polar explorer—Spitzbergen, Franz-Josef Land, Novaya Zemlya, Vaygats Island, the Taimur Peninsula, the New Siberian Islands, and perhaps Wrangel's Land also—are uninhabited. The pictures of life and variety, which the native, with his peculiar manners and customs, commonly offers to the foreigner in distant foreign lands, are not to be met with here. But, instead, the animal life, which he finds there in summer—for during winter almost all beings who live above the surface of the sea disappear from the highest North—is more vigorous and perhaps even more abundant, or, to speak more correctly, less concealed by the luxuriance of vegetation than in the south.

It is not, however, the larger mammalia—whales, walruses, seals, bears and reindeer—that attract attention in the first place, but the innumerable flocks of birds that swarm around the Polar traveller during the long summer day of the North.

Long before one enters the region of the Polar Sea proper, the vessel is surrounded by flocks of large grey birds which fly, or rather hover without moving their wings, close to the surface of the sea, rising and sinking with the swelling of the billows, eagerly searching for some eatable object on the surface of the water, or swim in the wake of the vessel in order to snap up any scraps that may be thrown overboard. It is the Arctic stormfogel[60] (Fulmar, "Mallemuck," "Hafhaest," Procellaria glacialis, L.). The fulmar is bold and voracious, and smells villanously, on which account it is only eaten in cases of necessity, although its flesh, if the bird has not recently devoured too much rotten blubber, is by no means without relish, at least for those who have become accustomed to the flavour of train oil, when not too strong. It is more common on Bear Island and Spitzbergen than on Novaya Zemlya, and scarcely appears to breed in any considerable numbers on the last-named place. I know three places north of Scandinavia where the fulmar breeds in large numbers: the first on Bear Island, on the slopes of some not very steep cliffs near the so-called south harbour of the island,[61] the second on the southern shore of Brandywine Bay on North-East Land, the third on ledges of the perpendicular rock-walls in the interior of Ice Fjord. At the two latter places the nests are inaccessible. On Bear Island, on the other hand, one can without very great difficulty plunder the whole colony of the dirty grey, short eggs, which are equally rounded at both ends. The eggs taste exceedingly well. The nest is very inconsiderable, smelling badly like the bird itself.

When the navigator has gone a little further north and come to an ice-bestrewed sea, the swell ceases at once, the wind is hushed and the sea becomes bright as a mirror, rising and sinking with a slow gentle heaving. Flocks of little auks (Mergulus alle, L.) Bruennich's guillemots (Uria Bruennichii, Sabine), and black guillemots (Uria grylle, L.) now swarm in the air and swim among the ice floes. The alke-kung (little auk), also called the "sea king," or rotge, occurs only sparingly off the southern part of Novaya Zemlya, and does not, so far as I know, breed there. The situation of the land is too southerly, the accumulations of stones along the sides of the mountains too inconsiderable, for the thriving of this little bird. But on Spitzbergen it occurs in incredible numbers, and breeds in the talus, 100 to 200 metres high, which frost and weathering have formed at several places on the steep slopes of the coast mountain sides; for instance, at Horn Sound, at Magdalena Bay, on the Norways (near 80 deg. N.L.), and other places. These stone heaps form the palace of the rotge, richer in rooms and halls than any other in the wide round world. If one climbs up among the stones, he sees at intervals actual clouds of fowl suddenly emerge from the ground either to swarm round in the air or else to fly out to sea, and at the same time those that remain make their presence underground known by an unceasing cackling and din, resembling, according to Friedrich Martens, the noise of a crowd of quarrelling women. Should this sound be stilled for a few moments, one need only attempt in some opening among the stones to imitate their cry (according to Martens: rott-tet-tet-tet-tet) to get immediately eager and sustained replies from all sides. The fowl circling in the air soon settle again on the stones of the mountain slopes, where, squabbling and fighting, they pack themselves so close together that from fifteen to thirty of them may be killed by a single shot. A portion of the flock now flies up again, others seek their safety like rats in concealment among the blocks of stone. But they soon creep out again, in order, as if by agreement, to fly out to sea and search for their food, which consists of crustacea and vermes. The rotge dives with ease. Its single blueish-white egg is laid on the bare ground without a nest, so deep down among the stones that it is only with difficulty that it can be got at. In the talus of the mountains north of Horn Sound I found on the 18th June, 1858, two eggs of this bird lying directly on the layer of ice between the stones. Probably the hatching season had not then begun. Where the main body of these flocks of birds passes the winter, is unknown,[62] but they return to the north early—sometimes too early. Thus in 1873 at the end of April I saw a large number of rotges frozen to death on the ice in the north part of Hinloopen Strait. When cooked the rotge tastes exceedingly well, and in consequence of the great development of the breast muscles it affords more food than could be expected from its small size.



Along with the rotge we find among the ice far out at sea flocks of alkor (looms, or Bruennich's guillemots), and the nearer we come to the coast, the more do these increase in number, especially if the cliffs along the shore offer to this species of sea-fowl—the most common of the Polar lands—convenient hatching places. For this purpose are chosen the faces of cliffs which rise perpendicularly out of the sea, but yet by ledges and uneven places afford room for the hatching fowl. On the guillemot-fells proper, eggs lie beside eggs in close rows from the crown of the cliff to near the sea level, and the whole fell is also closely covered with seafowl, which besides in flocks of thousands and thousands fly to and from the cliffs, filling the air with their exceedingly unpleasant scream. The eggs are laid, without trace of a nest, on the rock, which is either bare or only covered with old birds' dung, so closely packed together, that in 1858 from a ledge of small extent, which I reached by means of a rope from the top of the fell, I collected more than half a barrel-full of eggs. Each bird has but one very large egg, grey pricked with brown, of very variable size and form. After it has been sat upon for some time, it is covered with a thick layer of birds' dung, and in this way the hunters are accustomed to distinguish uneatable eggs from fresh.



If a shot be fired at a "loomery," the fowl fly away in thousands from their hatching places, without the number of those that are not frightened away being apparently diminished. The clumsy and short-winged birds, when they cast themselves out of their places, fall down at first a good way before they get "sufficient air" under their wings to be able to fly. Before this takes place, many plump down into the water, sometimes even into the boat which may be rowed along the foot of the fell.

An unceasing, unpleasant cackling noise indicates that a continual gossip goes on in the "loomery"; and that the unanimity there is not great, is proved by the passionate screams which are heard now and then. A bird squeezes forward in order to get a place on a ledge of rock already packed full, a couple of others quarrel about the ownership of an egg which has been laid on a corner of the rock only a few inches broad, and which now during the dispute is precipitated into the abyss. By the beginning of July most of the eggs are uneatable. I have seen the young of the size of a rotge accompany their mothers in the middle of August. The loom breeds on Walden Island and the north coast of North-East land, accordingly far north of 80 deg.. I found the largest "loomeries" on Spitzbergen south of Lomme Bay in Hinloopen Strait, at the southern entrance to Van Meyen Bay in Bell Sound, and at Alkornet in Ice Fjord. In respect to the large number of fowl, however, only the first of these can compete with the south shore of Besimannaja Bay (72 deg. 54' N.L.) and with the part of Novaya Zemlya that lies immediately to the south of this bay. The eggs of the loom are palatable, and the flesh is excellent, though not quite free from the flavour of train oil. In any case it tastes much better than that of the eider.

Along with the rotge and the loom two nearly allied species of birds, lunnefogeln, the Arctic puffin (Mormon arcticus, L.) and tejsten or tobis-grisslan, the black guillemot (Uria grylle, L.) are to be seen among the drift-ice. I do not know any puffin-fells on Spitzbergen. The bird appears to breed there only in small numbers, though it is still found on the most northerly part of the island. On Novaya Zemlya, too, it occurs rather sparingly. The black guillemot, on the other hand, is found everywhere, though never collected in large flocks, along the shores of Spitzbergen, and Novaya Zemlya, even as far north as Parry Island in 80 deg. 40' N.L., where in 1861 I saw several of their nests. These are placed near the summits of steep cliffs along the shore. The black guillemots often swim out together in pairs in the fjords. Their flesh has about the same taste as Bruennich's guillemot, but is tougher and of inferior quality; the eggs, on the other hand, are excellent.



The sea fowl mentioned above are never met with inland. They never settle on a grassy sward or on a level sandy beach. The steep fowl-fell sides, the sea, ground-ice, pieces of drift-ice and small stones rising above the water, form their habitat. They swim with great skill both on, and under the water. The black guillemots and rotges fly swiftly and well; Bruennich's guillemots, on the contrary, heavily and ill. The latter therefore do not perhaps remove in winter farther from their hatching places than to the nearest open water, and it is probable that colonies of Bruennich's guillemots are not located at places where the sea freezes completely even far out from the coast. On this perhaps depends the scarcity of Bruennich's guillemot in the Kara Sea.

While sailing in the Arctic Ocean, vessels are nearly always attended by two kinds of gulls, the greedy stormaosen or borgmaesteren, glaucous gull (Larus glaucus, Bruenn.), and the gracefully formed, swiftly flying kryckian or tretaoiga maosen, kittiwake (Larus tridactylus, L.), and if the hunter lies to at an ice-floe to flense upon it a seal which has been shot, it is not long till a large number of snow-white birds with dark blue bills and black legs settle down in the neighbourhood in order that they may get a portion of the spoil. They belong to the third kind of gull common in the north, ismaosen, the ivory gull (Larus eburneus, Gmel.).



In disposition and mode of life these gulls differ much from each other. The glaucous gull is sufficiently strong to be able to defend its eggs and young against the attack of the mountain fox. It therefore breeds commonly on the summits of easily accessible small cliffs, hillocks or heaps of stones, preferably in the neighbourhood of "loomeries" or on fowl-islands, where the young of the neighbouring birds offer an opportunity for prey and hunting during the season when its own young are being fed. Sometimes, as for instance at Brandywine Bay on Spitzbergen, the glaucous gull breeds in great flocks on the ledges of steep fell-sides, right in the midst of Bruennich's guillemots. On Bear Island I have seen it hatch on the very beach, at a place, for instance, under the arch of a waterfall leaping down from a precipitous cliff. The nests, which, to judge from the quantity of birds' dung in their neighbourhood, are used for a long succession of years, are placed in a depression in the rock or the ground, and lined with a little straw or a feather or two. The number of the eggs is three or four. After boiling they show a jellylike, half transparent white, and a reddish yellow, and are exceedingly delicious. The young birds have white flesh, resembling chicken. The burgomaster is common everywhere along the coasts of Novaya Zemlya and Spitzbergen. Yet I have not seen the nest of this gull on the north coast of North East Land or on the Seven Islands.



Still more common than the glaucous gull in the lands of the High North is kryckian, the kittiwake. It is met with far out at sea, where it accompanies the vessel whole days, circling round the tops of the masts, and sometimes—according to the statements of the walrus-hunters, when a storm is approaching—pecking at the points of the pendant. When the vessel is in harbour, the kittiwakes commonly gather round it to pick out anything eatable in the refuse that may be thrown away. They breed in great flocks on the steep escarpments in some separate part of the fowl-fells, in connection with which, it is evident that the kittiwakes always endeavour to choose the best places of the fell—those that are most inaccessible to the fox and are best protected against bad weather. Among the birds of the north the kittiwake is the best builder; for its nest is walled with straw and mud, and is very firm. It juts out like a great swallow's nest from the little ledge to which it is fixed. Projecting ends of straw are mostly bent in, so that the nest, with its regularly rounded form, has a very tidy appearance. The interior is further lined with a soft, carefully arranged layer of moss, grass and seaweed, on which the bird lays three to four well-flavoured eggs. The soft warm underlayer is, however, not without its inconvenience; for Dr. Stuxberg during the voyage of 1875 found in such a nest no fewer than twelve kinds of insects, among them Pulex vagabundus, Bohem. in nine specimens, a beetle, a fly, &c.

The ivory gull, called by Fr. Martens "Rathsherr," the Councillor, is found, as its Swedish name indicates, principally out at sea in the pack, or in fjords filled with drift-ice. It is a true ice-bird, and, it may almost be said, scarcely a water-bird at all, for it is seldom seen swimming on the surface, and it can dive as little as its relatives, the glaucous gull and the kittiwake. In greed it competes with the fulmar. When any large animal has been killed among the drift-ice, the ivory gull seldom fails to put in an appearance in order to quench its hunger with flesh and blubber. It consumes at the same time the excrements of the seal and the walrus, on which account from three to five ivory gulls may often be seen sitting for a long time round a seal-hole, quiet and motionless, waiting patiently the arrival of the seal (Malmgren).



The proper breeding places of this bird scarcely appear to be yet known. So common as it is both on the coasts of Spitzbergen from the Seven Islands to South Cape and on the north coast of Novaya Zemlya and America, its nest has only been found twice, once in 1853 by McClintock at Cape Krabbe in North America in 77 deg. 25' N.L., the second time by Dr. Malmgren at Murchison Bay, in 82 deg. 2' N.L. The two nests that Malmgren found consisted of depressions, twenty-three to twenty-six centimetres in diameter, in a heap of loose gravel, on a ledge of a steeply-sloping limestone-rock wall. In each nest was found only one egg, which, on the 30th July, already contained a down-covered young bird. For all the ivory gulls which have their home on Spitzbergen there were doubtless required several hundred such breeding-places as that at Murchison Bay. When to this is added the fact that we never in autumn saw on Spitzbergen any full-grown young of this kind of gull, I assume that its proper breeding-place must be found farther north, on the shores of some still unknown Polar land, perhaps continually surrounded by ice. It deserves to be mentioned with reference to this, that Murchison Bay was covered with ice when Malmgren found the nests referred to above.

Besides these varieties of the gull, two other species have been found, though very rarely, in the Polar regions, viz., Larus Sabinii, Sabine, and Larus Rossii, Richards. Although I have myself only seen the latter, and that but once (on the Chukchi Peninsula), I here give drawings of them both for the use of future Polar explorers. They are perhaps, if they be properly observed, not so rare as is commonly supposed.

Often during summer in the Arctic regions one hears a penetrating shriek in the air. When one inquires into the reason of this, it is found to proceed from a kittiwake, more rarely from a glaucous gull, eagerly pursued by a bird as large as a crow, dark-brown, with white breast and long tail-feathers. It is labben, the common skua (Lestris parasitica, L.), known by the Norwegian walrus-hunters under the name of tjufjo, derived from the bird's cry, "I-o i-o," and its shameless thief-nature. When the "tjufjo" sees a kittiwake or a glaucous gull fly off with a shrimp, a fish, or a piece of blubber, it instantly attacks it. It flies with great swiftness backwards and forwards around its victim, striking it with its bill, until the attacked bird either drops what it has caught, which is then immediately snapped up by the skua, or else settles down upon the surface of the water, where it is protected against attack. The skua besides eats eggs of other birds, especially of eiders and geese. If the eggs are left but for a few moments unprotected in the nest, it is immediately to the front and shows itself so voracious that it is not afraid to attack nests from which the hatching birds have been frightened away by men engaged in gathering eggs only a few yards off. With incredible dexterity it pecks a hole in the eggs and sucks their contents. If speed is necessary, this takes place so quickly and out of so many eggs in succession that it sometimes has to stand without moving, unable to fly further until it has thrown up what it had swallowed. The skua in this way commonly takes part in the plundering of every eider island. The walrus-hunters are very much embittered against the bird on account of this intrusion on their industry, and kill it whenever they can. The whalers called it "struntjaeger"—refuse-hunter—because they believed that it hunted gulls in order to make them void their excrements which "struntjaegeren" was said to devour as a luxury.



The skua breeds upon low, unsheltered, often water-drenched headlands and islands, where it lays one or two eggs on the bare ground, often without trace of a nest. The eggs are so like the ground that it is only with difficulty that they can be found. The male remains in the neighbourhood of the nest during the hatching season. If a man, or an animal which the bird considers dangerous, approaches the eggs, the pair endeavour to draw attention from them by removing from the nest, creeping on the ground and flapping their wings in the most pitiful way. The bird thus acts with great skill a veritable comedy, but takes good care that it is not caught.

As is well known, we know only two varieties of colour in this bird, a self-coloured brown, and a brown on the upper part of the body with white below. Of these I have only once in the Arctic regions seen the self-coloured variety, viz. at Bell Sound in 1858. All the hundreds of skuas which I have seen, besides, have had the throat and lower part of the body coloured white.

This bird is very common on Spitzbergen and Novaya Zemlya. Yet perhaps it scarcely breeds on the north part of North-East Land. Along with the bird now described there occur, though sparingly, two others:—bredstjertade labben, the Pomarine skua (Lestris pomarina, Tem.) and fjellalbben, Buffon's skua (Lestris Buffonii, Boie). The latter is distinguished by its more slender build and two very long tail-feathers, and it is much more common farther to the east than on Spitzbergen. I have not had an opportunity of making any observations on the mode of life of these birds.

As the skua pursues the kittiwake and the glaucous gull, it is in its turn pursued with extraordinary fierceness by the little swiftly-flying and daring bird taernan, the Arctic tern (Sterna macroura, Naum.). This beautiful bird is common everywhere on the coasts of Spitzbergen, but rather rare on Novaya Zemlya. It breeds in considerable flocks on low grass-free headlands or islands, covered with sand or pebbles. The eggs, which are laid on the bare ground without any trace of a nest, are so like lichen-covered pebbles in colour, that it is only with difficulty one can get eyes upon them; and this is the case in a yet higher degree with the newly-hatched young, which notwithstanding their thin dress of down have to lie without anything below them among the bare stones. From the shortness of their legs and the length of their wings it is only with difficulty that the tern can go on the ground. It is therefore impossible for it to protect its nest in the same way as the "tjufjo." Instead, this least of all the swimming birds of the Polar lands does not hesitate to attack any one, whoever he may be, that dares to approach its nest. The bird circles round the disturber of the peace with evident exasperation, and now and then goes whizzing past his head at such a furious rate that he must every moment fear that he will be wounded with its sharp beak.

Along with the swimmers enumerated above, we find everywhere along these shores two species of eider, the vanliga eidern, common eider (Somateria mollissima, L.) and praktejdern, king-duck (Somateria spectabilis, L.). The former prefers to breed on low islands, which, at the season for laying eggs, are already surrounded by open water and are thus rendered inaccessible to the mountain foxes that wander about on the mainland. The richest eider islands I have seen in Spitzbergen are the Down Islands at Horn Sound. When I visited the place in 1858 the whole islands were so thickly covered with nests that it was necessary to proceed with great caution in order not to trample on eggs. Their number in every nest was five to six, sometimes larger, the latter case, according to the walrus-hunters, being accounted for by the female when she sits stealing eggs from her neighbours. I have myself seen an egg of Anser bernicla in an eider's nest. The eggs are hatched by the female, but the beautifully coloured male watches in her neighbourhood and gives the signal of flight when danger approaches. The nest consists of a rich, soft, down bed. The best down is got by robbing the down-covered nest, an inferior kind by plucking the dead birds. When the female is driven from the nest she seeks in haste to scrape down over the eggs in order that they may not be visible. She besides squirts over them a very stinking fluid, whose disgusting smell adheres to the collected eggs and down. The stinking substance is however so volatile or so easily decomposed in the air that the smell completely disappears in a few hours. The eider, which some years ago was very numerous on Spitzbergen,[63] has of late years considerably diminished in numbers, and perhaps will soon be completely driven thence, if some restraint be not laid on the heedless way in which not only the Eider Islands are now plundered, but the birds too killed, often for the mere pleasure of slaughter. On Novaya Zemlya, too, the eider is common. It breeds, for instance, in not inconsiderable numbers on the high islands in Karmakul Bay. The eider's flesh has, it is true, but a slight flavour of train oil, but it is coarse and far inferior to that of Bruennich's guillemot. In particular, the flesh of the female while hatching is almost uneatable.



The king-duck occurs more sparingly than the common eider. On Spitzbergen it is called the "Greenland eider," on Greenland the "Spitzbergen eider," which appears to indicate that in neither place is it quite at home. On Novaya Zemlya, on the other hand, it occurs in larger numbers. Only once have I seen the nest of this bird, namely, in 1873 on Axel's Islands in Bell Sound, where it bred in limited numbers together with the common eider. In the years 1858 and 1864, when I visited the same place, it did not breed there. Possibly its proper breeding place is on Novaya Zemlya at the inland lakes a little way from the coast. The walrus-hunters say that its eggs taste better than those of the common eider. They are somewhat smaller and have a darker green colour.

On the Down Islands hatches, along with the eiders, the long-necked prutgaessen, barnacle goose (Anser bernicla, L.) marked on the upper part of the body in black and brownish grey. It lays four to five white eggs in an artless nest without down, scattered here and there among the eiders' nests rich in down. This variety of goose is found in greatest numbers during the moulting season at small inland lakes along the coast, for instance on the line of coast between Bell Sound and Ice Fjord and on Gooseland. The walrus-hunters sometimes call them "rapphoens"—partridges—a misleading name, which in 1873 induced me to land on the open coast south of Ice Fjord, where "rapphoens" were to be found in great numbers. On landing I found only moulting barnacle geese. The barnacle goose finds its food more on land and inland lakes than in the sea. Its flesh accordingly is free from the flavour of train oil and tastes well, except that of the female during the hatching season, when it is poor and tough. The eggs are better than the eider's.

On Spitzbergen besides the barnacle goose we meet with the closely allied species Anser leucopsis, Bechst. It is rather rare, but more common on Novaya Zemlya. Further there occurs at the last-named place a third species of goose, vildgaosen, the "grey goose" or "great goose" of the walrus-hunters; the bean goose (Anser segetum, Gmel.), which is replaced on Spitzbergen by a nearly allied type, the pink-footed goose (Anser brachyrhynchus, Baillon). These geese are much larger than both the eider and the barnacle goose, and appear to be sufficiently strong to defend themselves against the fox. They commonly breed high up on some mossy or grassy oasis, among the stone mounds of the coast mountains, or on the summit of a steep strand escarpment in the interior of the fjords. During the moulting season the grey geese collect in flocks at the small fresh-water lakes along the coast. The flesh of this species of goose is finer than that of the common tame goose and has no trace of any train flavour.

Among the swimming birds that give the summer life on Novaya Zemlya its peculiar character, we may further reckon the scaup-duck and the swan. Alfogel or allan, the long-tailed duck (Fuligula glacialis, L.) is rare on Spitzbergen, but occurs very generally on Novaya Zemlya, and especially in the Kara Sea, on whose coasts it is seen in summer collected in large flocks. Mindre saongsvanen, Bewick's swan (Cygnus Bewickii, Yarr.), is the most nobly formed and coloured bird of the north. I have already described its nest, which is found in considerable numbers in Gooseland. The bird is blinding white, resembling the common swan, but somewhat smaller and with a considerable difference in the formation of the windpipe and the "keel" of the breastbone. The flesh is said to be coarse and of inferior flavour.



The land-birds in the Arctic regions are less numerous both in species and individuals than the sea-birds. Some of them, however, also occur in large numbers. Almost wherever one lands, some small greyish brown waders are seen running quickly to and fro, sometimes in pairs, sometimes in flocks of ten to twenty. It is the most common wader of the north, the fjaerplyt of the walrus-hunters, the purple sandpiper (Tringa maritima, Bruenn.). It lives on flies, gnats, and other land insects. Its well-filled crop shows how well the bird knows how to collect its food even in regions where the entomologist can only with difficulty get hold of a few of the animal forms belonging to his field of research. The purple sandpiper lays its four or five eggs in a pretty little nest of dry straw on open grassy or mossy plains a little distance from the sea. It also endeavours to protect its nest by acting a comedy like that of the tjufjo. Its flesh is delicious.

In the company of the purple sandpiper there is often seen a somewhat larger wader, or, more correctly, a bird intermediate between the waders and the swimming birds. This is the beautiful brednaebbade simsnaeppan, the grey (or red) phalarope (Phalaropus fulicarius, Bonap.). It is not rare on Spitzbergen, and it is exceedingly common, perhaps even the commonest bird on the north coast of Asia. I imagine therefore that it is not absent from Novaya Zemlya, though there has hitherto been observed there only the nearly allied smalnaebbade simsnaeppan, the red-necked phalarope (Phalaropus hyperboreus, Lath.). This bird might be taken as the symbol of married love, so faithful are the male and female, being continually to be seen in each other's company. While they search for their food in pools of water along the coast, they nearly always bear each other company, swimming in zigzag, so that every now and then they brush past each other. If one of them is shot, the other flies away only for a short time until it observes that its mate is left behind. It then flies back, swims with evident distress round its dead friend, and pushes it with its bill to get it to rise. It does not, however, spend any special care on its nest or the rearing of its young, at least to judge by the nest which Duner found at Bell Sound in 1864. The position of the nest was indicated by three eggs laid without anything below them on the bare ground, consisting of stone splinters. The flesh of the phalarope is a great delicacy, like that of other waders which occur in the regions in question, but which I cannot now stay to describe.

During excursions in the interior of the land along the coast, one often hears, near heaps of stones or shattered cliffs, a merry twitter. It comes from an old acquaintance from the home land, the snoesparfven or snoelaerkan, the snow-bunting (Emberiza nivalis, L.). The name is well chosen, for in winter this pretty bird lives as far south as the snow goes on the Scandinavian peninsula, and in summer betakes itself to the snow limit in Lapland, the tundra of North Siberia, or the coasts of Spitzbergen and Novaya Zemlya. It there builds its carefully-constructed nest of grass, feathers and down, deep in a stone heap, preferably surrounded by a grassy plain. The air resounds with the twitter of the little gay warbler, which makes the deeper impression because it is the only true bird's song one hears in the highest north.[64]

On Spitzbergen there is sometimes to be met with in the interior of the country, on the mountain slopes, a game bird, spetsbergsripan, the rock ptarmigan (Lagopus hyperboreus, Sund.). A nearly allied type occurs on the Taimur peninsula, and along the whole north coast of Asia. It perhaps therefore can scarcely be doubted that it is also to be found on Novaya Zemlya, though we have not hitherto seen it there. On Spitzbergen this bird had only been found before 1872 in single specimens, but in that year, to our glad surprise, we discovered an actual ptarmigan-fell in the neighbourhood of our winter colony, immediately south of the 80th degree of latitude. It formed the haunt of probably a thousand birds; at least a couple of hundred were shot there in the course of the winter. They probably breed there under stones in summer, and creeping in among the stones pass the winter there, at certain seasons doubtless in a kind of torpid state.



The mode of life of the Spitzbergen ptarmigan is thus widely different from that of the Scandinavian ptarmigan, and its flesh also tastes differently. For the bird is exceedingly fat, and its flesh, as regards flavour, is intermediate between black-cock and fat goose.[65] We may infer from this that it is a great delicacy.



When I was returning, in the autumn of 1872, from an excursion of some length along the shore of Wijde Bay, I fell in with one of our sportsmen, who had in his hand a white bird marked with black spots, which he showed me as a "very large ptarmigan." In doing so, however, he fell into a great ornithological mistake, for it was not a ptarmigan at all, but another kind of bird, similarly marked in winter, namely, fjellugglan, the walrus-hunter's isoern, the snowy owl (Strix nyctea, L.). It evidently breeds and winters at the ptarmigan-fell, which it appears to consider as its own poultry-yard. In fact, the marking of this bird of prey is so similar to that of its victim that the latter can scarcely perhaps know how to take care of itself. On Spitzbergen the snowy owl is very rare; but on Novaya Zemlya and the North coast of Asia—where the lemming, which is wanting on Spitzbergen, occurs in great crowds—it is common. It commonly sits immoveable on an open mountain slope, visible at a great distance, from the strong contrast of its white colour with the greyish-green ground. Even, in the brightest sunshine, unlike other owls, it sees exceedingly well. It is very shy, and therefore difficult to shoot. The snow ptarmigan and the snowy owl are the only birds of which we know with certainty that they winter on Spitzbergen, and both are, according to Hedenstroem, native to the New Siberian Islands (Otrywki o Sibiri, p. 112).

In the cultivated regions of Europe the larger mammalia are so rare that most men in their whole lifetime have never seen a wild mammal so large as a dog. This is not the case in the high north. The number of the larger mammalia here is indeed no longer so large as in the seventeenth century, when their capture yielded an abundant living to from twenty to thirty thousand men; but sport on Novaya Zemlya and Spitzbergen still supports several hundred hunters, and during summer scarcely a day passes without a visitor of the coasts of these islands seeing a seal or a walrus, a reindeer or a Polar bear. In order to present a true picture of the Polar traveller's surroundings and mode of life, it is absolutely necessary to give a sketch of the occurrence and mode of life of the wild mammalia in the Polar lands.

I shall make a beginning with the reindeer. This graminivorous animal goes nearly as far to the north as the land in the old world. It was not, indeed, observed by Payer on Franz Josef Land, but traces of the reindeer were seen by us on the clay beds at Cape Chelyuskin; remnants of reindeer were observed at Barents' winter harbour on the northernmost part of Novaya Zemlya; some very fat animals were killed by Norwegian walrus-hunters on King Karl's Land east of Spitzbergen, and for some years back the reindeer was very numerous even on the north coast of North East Land, and on Castren's, Parry's, Marten's, and Phipps' Islands, lying still farther to the north. Although these regions are situated between 80 deg. and 81 deg. N.L., the reindeer evidently thrives there very well, and finds, even in winter, abundant food on the mountain slopes swept clear of snow by storms, as is shown by the good condition in which several of the animals shot by us were, and by the numerous reindeer traces and tracks which we saw on Castren's Island in the month of May, 1873. Nor does a winter temperature of -40 deg. to -50 deg. appear to agree particularly ill with these relatives of the deer of the south. Even the Norwegian reindeer can bear the climate of Spitzbergen, for some of the selected draught reindeer which I took with me to Spitzbergen in 1872, and which made their escape soon after they were landed, were shot by hunters in 1875. They then pastured in company with wild reindeer, and were, like them, very fat. It is remarkable that the reindeer, notwithstanding the devastating pursuit to which it is exposed on Spitzbergen,[66] is found there in much larger numbers than on North Novaya Zemlya or the Taimur peninsula, where it is almost protected from the attacks of the hunter. Even on the low-lying part of South Novaya Zemlya, the reindeer, notwithstanding the abundance of the summer pasture, is so rare that, when one lands there, any reindeer-hunting is scarcely to be counted on. It first occurs in any considerable numbers farther to the north, on both sides of Matotschkin Schar.

It deserves to be mentioned here that three hundred years ago, when the north part of Novaya Zemlya was for the first time visited by man, reindeer do not appear to have been more numerous there than now. In the narrative of Barents' third voyage (De Veer, Diarium Nauticum, 21st June, 1506) it is expressly stated: "Here it may be remarked that; although the land, which we consider as Groenland (the present Spitzbergen), lies under and over the 80th degree of latitude, there grow there abundant leaves and grass, and there are found there such animals as eat grass, as reindeer, while on the other hand, on Novaya Zemlya, under the 76th degree of latitude, there are neither leaves nor grass nor any grass-eating animal." After this, however, traces of reins were found even at the winter station; a bear, for instance, was killed that had devoured a reindeer.

On Spitzbergen the reindeer have been considerably diminished in numbers by the hunting, first of the Dutch and English, and afterwards of the Russians and Norwegians. In the northwestern part of the island, where the Dutch had their train-boiling establishments, the animal has been completely extirpated.[67] It still, however, occurs on Ice Fjord in very great numbers, which, were the animal protected, would speedily increase.

That so devastating a pursuit as that which goes on year after year on Spitzbergen can be carried on without the animal being extirpated, has even given rise to the hypothesis of an immigration from Novaya Zemlya. But since I have become better acquainted with the occurrence of the reindeer in the latter place, this mode of explanation does not appear to me to be correct. If, therefore, as several circumstances in fact indicate, an immigration of reindeer to Spitzbergen does take place, it must be from some still unknown Polar land situated to the north-north-east. In the opinion of some of the walrus-hunters there are indications that this unknown land is inhabited, for it has repeatedly been stated that marked reindeer have been taken on Spitzbergen. The first statement on this point is to be found in Witsen (Noort ooster gedeelte van Asia en Europa, 1705, ii. page 904), where the reins are said to have been marked on the horns and the ears; and I have myself heard hunters, who in Norway were well acquainted with the care of reindeer, state positively that the ears of some of the Spitzbergen reindeer they shot were clipped—probably, however, the whole has originated from the ears having been marked by frost. That no immigration to Spitzbergen of reindeer from Novaya Zemlya takes place, is shown besides by the fact that the Spitzbergen reindeer appears to belong to a race differing from the Novaya Zemlya reindeer, and distinguished by its smaller size, shorter head and legs, and plumper and fatter body.



The life of the wild reindeer is best known from Spitzbergen. During summer it betakes itself to the grassy plains in the ice-free valleys of the island, in late autumn it withdraws—according to the walrus-hunters' statements—to the sea-coast, in order to eat the seaweed that is thrown up on the beach, and in winter it goes back to the lichen-clad mountain heights in the interior of the country, where it appears to thrive exceedingly well, though the cold during winter must be excessively severe; for when the reindeer in spring return to the coast they are still very fat, but some weeks afterwards, when the snow has frozen, on the surface, and a crust of ice makes it difficult for them to get at the mountain sides, they become so poor as scarcely to be eatable. In summer, however, they speedily eat themselves back into condition, and in autumn they are so fat that they would certainly take prizes at an exhibition of fat cattle. In the museum at Tromsoe there is preserved the backbone of a reindeer, shot on King Karl's Land, which had a layer of fat seven to eight centimetres in thickness on the loin.

The reindeer, in regions where it has been much hunted, is very shy, but, if the ground is not quite even, one can creep within range, if the precaution be taken not to approach it from the windward. During the rutting season, which falls in late autumn, it sometimes happens that the reindeer attacks the hunter.

The Spitzbergen reindeer is not tormented, like the reindeer in Lapland and on Novaya Zemlya, by "gorm" (inch-long larvae of a fly, which are developed under the animal's skin). Its flesh is also better than that of the Lapp reindeer. None of the contagious diseases which of late years have raged so dreadfully among the reindeer in northern Europe has ever, at least during the last fifty years, been common on Spitzbergen.

The Polar bear occurs principally on coasts and islands which are surrounded by drift-ice, often even upon ice-fields far out at sea, for his best hunting is among the ice-floes. Now he is rather rare on the south-western coasts of Spitzbergen and Novaya Zemlya which are almost free of ice during summer, but more common on the northern parts of these islands, which are almost always surrounded by ice. Thus for instance during my many landings at Horn Sound, Bell Sound, Ice Fjord, Foreland Sound, and King's Bay, on the west coast of Spitzbergen, I have never seen a single bear. On the other hand, bears were seen at nearly every resting-place during the boat voyage I made in 1861 with Torell in Hinloopen Strait and along the shores of the most northerly islands on Spitzbergen, also during the sledge journey which Palander and I made in the spring of 1873 round North East Land. The Polar bear is besides found everywhere along the north coast of Asia and America, apparently in greater numbers the farther north we go. Sometimes too, first on ice and then swimming, he has reached the north coast of Norway, for instance, in March 1853, when, according to a statement in Tromsoe Stiftstidende (No. 4 for 1869), a Polar bear was killed in Kjoellefjord in East Einmark.

The bear is not difficult to kill. When he observes a man he commonly approaches in hope of prey, with supple movements, and in a hundred zigzag bends, in order to conceal the direction he intends to take, and thus keep his prey from being frightened. During his approach he often climbs up on blocks of ice, or raises himself on his hind legs, in order to get a more extensive view, or else stands snuffing up the air with evident care in all directions, in order, by the aid of smell, which he seems to rely upon more than sight, to ascertain the true kind and nature of the surrounding objects. If he thinks he has to do with a seal, he creeps or trails himself forward along the ice, and is said then to conceal with the fore-paws the only part of his body that contrasts with the white colour of the snow—his large black nose. If one keeps quite still, the bear comes in this way so near that one can shoot him at the distance of two gun-lengths, or, what the hunters consider safer, kill him with the lance. If an unarmed man falls in with a Polar bear, some rapid movements and loud cries are generally sufficient to put him to flight, but if the man himself flies, he is certain to have the bear after him at full speed. If the bear is wounded, he always takes to flight. He often lays snow upon the wound with his fore-paws; sometimes in his death struggles he scrapes with his fore-feet a hole in the snow, in which he buries his head.

When a vessel lies at anchor, the bear sometimes swims out to it, and if one encamps in distant regions one often finds on getting up in the morning a Polar bear in the neighbourhood, who during the night has gone and nosed round the tent, without daring to attack it. I remember only one case of a bear venturing to look into an inhabited tent; it was during Kane's journey. He was frightened on that occasion by the lighting of some lucifers. I have myself with my comrades encamped without a watch in regions where we were certain that our encampment would be visited, while we lay in deep sleep, by some bear, that seldom, when the cook rose to make coffee, failed to come within range of shot.



The bear on the other hand has a special fancy for taking an inventory of depots of provisions, of abandoned vessels, or of boats that have been left drawn up on the beach. Most Arctic travellers have remarkable adventures to relate, which both men and bears have gone through on such occasions. During our expedition in 1864, for instance, a large bear came and closely examined the contents of a boat covered with a tent, which we had left unwatched for a few hours at the bottom of Stor Fjord. He ate up a carefully-cooked reindeer roast, tore the reserve clothes, scattered about the ship-biscuit, &c.; and after we had returned in the evening, gathered our things together in a heap, closed the tent and lain down to sleep, the same bear returned, and, while we slept, appropriated all the reindeer beef we had cooked to be used, in place of the roast we had lost, during the following day's journey. During one of the English expeditions in search of Franklin, there was killed on one occasion, a bear in whose stomach there was found, among many other articles, the stock of sticking-plaster from a neighbouring depot. The bear can also roll away very large stones, but a layer of frozen sand is too much for him.

The Polar bear swims exceedingly well, but not so fast as that he can escape in this way, if he be pursued in a boat; if a boat and stout rowers are at hand he is accordingly done for, if, as often happens, he in attempting to escape seeks his deliverance in the sea. There, he is, as the hunters say, "as easy to kill as a sheep," but one has to make haste to get hold of the killed animal with a harpoon or in some other way, for it speedily sinks, unless it is very fat.

The walrus-hunting vessels from Tromsoe brought home in 1868 twenty, in 1869 fifty-three, in 1870 ninety-eight, in 1871 seventy-four, and in 1872 thirty-three bears. It may be inferred from this that the Norwegian walrus-hunters kill yearly on an average at least a hundred bears. It is remarkable that in this large number a pregnant female or one with newly-born young is never found.[68] The female bear appears to keep herself well concealed during the time she is pregnant; perhaps in some ice-hole in the interior of the country.

Whether the Polar bear hibernates during winter is not quite settled; various facts, however, point in this direction. For instance, he disappears almost completely from wintering stations during the dark time, and holes have sometimes been met with in which bears were concealed. Thus it once happened to Tobiesen that he went down with one foot into such a hole, to the no small dismay not only of the experienced walrus-hunter, but also of the bear.

It is also stated that the bear during the dark time goes to the edge of the ice to seek his food. I cannot say positively whether this is the case or not; but the fact points in an opposite direction, that while only a single bear was seen in the course of the winter in the open water in the neighbourhood of our winter station at Mussel Bay in 1872-73, Palander and I almost daily saw bears on the hard frozen sea north of North East Land. Tracks of bears were visible there in all directions on the ice, and along with them light, sinuous traces of the fox. There were, on the other hand, no seal holes to be found, and it was accordingly difficult to understand wherefore the bears had chosen just this desolate stretch of ice as their haunt. The bears that were killed were besides uncommonly lean, the fat which they yielded being scarcely available as fuel for the sledge-party's cooking apparatus.

During their extended excursions after prey the male and the female, the latter generally attended by one or two large young ones, keep each other company. Larger numbers are seldom seen together, unless at places where a good many carcases of walruses, seals, or white fish are lying.

In former times the sight of a bear created great dismay in Polar travellers, but now the walrus-hunters do not hesitate a moment to attack, lance in hand, a large number of bears. They have sometimes in this way killed as many as twelve within a short time. They depend less on the gun. During the expedition of 1861 Carl Chydenius shot three in a few minutes, close to his tent-covered boat.

I do not know a single case in which any Norwegian walrus-hunter has been seriously wounded by a bear. It appears, however, as if this animal were bolder and more dangerous in regions where he has not made acquaintance with man's dangerous hunting implements. During the first English and Dutch voyages to Novaya Zemlya, bears were met with at nearly every place where a landing was effected, in regions where the Polar bear is now wholly absent, and the travellers were compelled to undertake actual combats—combats which cost several human lives. During Barents' second voyage some men on the 26th/16th September, 1593, landed on the mainland near the eastern mouth of Yugor Schar, in order to collect "a sort of diamonds occurring there" (valueless rock crystals), when a large white bear, according to De Veer, rushed forward and caught one of the stone collectors by the neck. On the man screaming "Who seizes me by the neck?" a comrade standing beside answered, "A bear," and ran off. The bear immediately bit asunder the head of his prey, and sucked the blood. The rest of the men who were on land now came to his relief, attacking the bear with levelled guns and lances. But the bear was not frightened, but rushed forward and laid hold of a man in the rank of the attacking party, and killed him too, whereupon all the rest took to flight. Assistance now came from the vessel, and the bear was surrounded by thirty men, but against their will, because they had to do with a "grim, undaunted, and greedy beast." Of these thirty men only three ventured to attack the bear, whom these "courageous" men finally killed, after a rather severe struggle.

A large number of occurrences of a similar nature, though commonly attended with fortunate results, are to be found recorded in most of the narratives of Arctic travel. Thus a sailor was once carried off from a whaler caught in the ice in Davis' Straits, and in 1820, among the drift-ice in the sea between Greenland and Spitzbergen, the same fate was like to befall one of the crew of a Hull whaler; but he succeeded in effecting his escape by taking to flight, and throwing to the bear, first his only weapon of defence, a lance, and then his articles of clothing, one after the other.[69] On the 6th of March 1870, Dr. Boergen was attacked by a bear, and dragged a considerable distance.[70] It is remarkable that the bear did not this time either kill his prey, but that he had time to cry out, "A bear is dragging me away;" and that, after the bear had dragged him several hundred yards and he had got free, he could, though very badly scalped, himself make his way back to the vessel. The scalping had been done by the bear attempting to crush the skull in its mouth, as it is accustomed to do to the seals it catches. Scoresby considers it dangerous to hunt the Polar bear in deep snow. The well-known Dane, C. Petersen, guide to McClintock, Kane and others, on the other hand, considered it as little dangerous to attack a bear as to slaughter a sheep. The Siberian traveller, Hedenstroem, says that a man may venture to do so with a knife tied to a walking-stick, and the Norwegian hunters, or at least the Norwegian-Finnish harpooners, express themselves in much the same way regarding "this noble and dangerous" sport.

The bear's principal food consists of the seal and walrus. It is said that with a single stroke of his powerful paw he can cast a walrus up on the ice. On the other hand he seldom succeeds in catching the reindeer, because it is fleeter than the bear. I have, however, in North East Land, on two occasions, seen blood and hair of reindeer which had been caught by bears. There is not the least doubt that, along with flesh, the bear also eats vegetable substances, as seaweed, grass, and lichens. I have several times, on examining the stomach of a bear that had been shot, found in it only remains of vegetable substances; and the walrus-hunters know this so well that they called a large old Polar bear, which Dr. Theel shot at Port Dickson in 1875, "an old Land-king" that was too fat to go a hunting, and therefore ate grass on land. He makes use besides of food of many different kinds; a bear, for instance, in the winter 1865-66 consumed for Tobiesen the contents of two barrels of salt fish, which he had left behind in a deserted hut.

The flesh of the bear, if he is not too old or has not recently eaten rotten seal-flesh, is very eatable, being intermediate in taste between pork and beef. The flesh of the young bear is white and resembles veal. The eating of the liver causes sudden illness.

Although, as already mentioned, the Polar bear sometimes drifts to land and is killed in the northernmost part of Norway, his skin is not enumerated by Othere among the products of Finmark. It thus appears to have become known in Europe first after the Norwegians' discovery of Iceland and Greenland, and was at first considered an extraordinary rarity. A Norwegian of importance, who had emigrated to Iceland, and there succeeded in getting hold of a female bear with two young, sent them in 880 to the King of Norway, and got in return a small vessel laden with wood. This animal had not then been seen in Norway before. The old sagas of the north are said to relate further that the priest Isleif, in order to be nominated bishop of Iceland, in the year 1056 presented a white bear to Kejsar Henrik. In the year 1064 the King of Denmark gave in exchange for a white bear from Greenland a well-equipped, full rigged, trading vessel, a considerable sum of money, and a valuable gold ring.[71]



Marco Polo also says in his account of the country of the peace-loving nomad Tatar tribes living in the north, that there are to be found there white bears most of them twenty hands long, large black foxes, wild asses (reindeer), and a little animal called "rondes," from which we get the sable fur.[72] As the Polar bear is only to be found on the coast of the Arctic Ocean, these statements prove that in the thirteenth century the northernmost part of Asia was inhabited or at least visited by hunters. Olaus Magnus even describes the bear's mode of life not incorrectly, with the addition that it was customary to present their skins to the altars of cathedrals and parish churches in order that the feet of the priest might not freeze during mass.[73] The Polar bear however first became more generally known in Western Europe by the Arctic voyages of the English and Dutch, and its price has now sunk so much that its skin, which was once considered an article of extraordinary value, is now, in adjusting accounts between the owners of a vessel and the walrus-hunters, reckoned at from twenty-five to fifty Scandinavian crowns (say twenty-eight to fifty-six shillings).

In 1609 Stephen Bennet, during his seventh voyage to Bear Island, captured two young Polar bears, which were brought to England and kept at Paris Garden (Purchas, iii. p. 562). Now such animals are very frequently brought to Norway in order to be sent from thence to the zoological gardens of Europe, in which the Polar bear is seldom wanting. The capture is facilitated by the circumstance that the young bears seldom leave their mother when she is killed.

Along with the reindeer and the bear there are found in the regions now in question only two other land-mammalia, the mountain fox (Vulpes lagopus L.) and the lemming (Myodes obensis Brants).[74] The fox is rather common both on Spitzbergen and Novaya Zemlya. Its abode sometimes consists of a number of passages excavated in the ground and connected together, with several openings. Such a nest I saw on Wahlberg's Island in Hinloopen Strait on the summit of a fowl-fell; it was abundantly provided with a stock of half-rotten guillemots, concealed in the passages. The old foxes were not visible while we were there, but several young ones, some black, some variegated red and white, ran hither and thither from out the openings and played with supple movements in the neighbourhood of the nest. A similar nest also, with young that ran between its openings, played and hunted each other, I have seen on the north shore of Matotschkin Schar, and uninhabited fox-holes and passages at several places on the west coast of Novaya Zemlya, commonly in the tops of dry sandy knolls.

The lemming is not found on Spitzbergen, but must at certain seasons occur in incredible numbers on Novaya Zemlya. For at the commencement of summer, when the snow has recently melted away, there are to be seen, everywhere in the level fertile places in the very close grass of the meadows, footpaths about an inch and a half deep, which have been formed during winter by the trampling of these small animals, under the snow, in the bed of grass or lichens which lies immediately above the frozen ground. They have in this way united with each other the dwellings they had excavated in the ground, and constructed for themselves convenient ways, well protected against the severe cold of winter, to their fodder-places. Thousands and thousands of animals must be required in order to carry out this work even over a small area, and wonderfully keen must their sense of locality be, if, as seems probable, they can find their way with certainty in the endless labyrinth they have thus formed. During the snow-melting season these passages form channels for running off the water, small indeed, but everywhere to be met with, and contributing in a considerable degree to the drying of the ground. The ground besides is at certain places so thickly strewed with lemming dung, that it must have a considerable influence on the condition of the soil.

In the Arctic regions proper one is not tormented by the mosquito,[75] and viewed as a whole the insect fauna of the entire Polar area is exceedingly scanty, although richer than was before supposed. Arachnids, acarids, and podurids occur most plentifully, Dr. Stuxberg having been able during the Yenisej expedition of 1875 to collect a very large number of them, which were worked out after his return—the podurids by Dr. T. TULLBERG of Upsala, the arachnids by Dr. T. KOCH of Nurnberg. These small animals are found in very numerous individual specimens, among mouldering vegetable remains, under stones and pieces of wood on the beach, creeping about on grass, straws, &c.

Of the insects proper there were brought home from Novaya Zemlya, during the same expedition, nine species of coleoptera, which were determined by Professor F.W. MAeKLIN, of Helsingfors.[76] Some few hemiptera and lepidoptera and orthoptera, and a large number of hymenoptera and diptera from the same expedition have been examined by Lector A.E. HOLMGREN of Stockholm. Dr. Stuxberg also collected a large number of land-worms, which have been described by our countryman Dr. G. EISEN, now settled in California. The occurrence of this animal group in a region where the ground at the depth of a few inches is continually frozen, appears to me exceedingly remarkable—and from a general point of view the occurrence of insects in a land which is exposed to a winter cold below the freezing-point of mercury, and where the animal cannot seek protection from it by creeping down to a stratum of earth which never freezes, presupposes that either the insect itself, its egg, larva, or pupa, may be frozen stiff without being killed. Only very few species of these small animals, however, appear to survive such a freezing test, and the actual land-evertebrate-fauna of the Polar countries is therefore exceedingly scanty in comparison with that of more southerly regions.



It is quite otherwise as regards the sea. Here animal life is exceedingly abundant as far as man has succeeded in making his way to the farthest north. At nearly every sweep the dredge brings up from the sea-bottom masses of decapods, crustacea, mussels, asterids, echini,[77] &c., in varying forms, and the surface of the sea on a sunny day swarms with pteropods, beroids, surface-crustacea, &c. Dr. Stuxberg will give, farther on, a sketch of this department of animal life, which in the high north is so rich in variety. In the meantime I can but refer to the large number of papers on this subject which have been issued in the publications of the Swedish Academy of Sciences.

Of the higher animal types a greater number within the Polar territory occur in the sea than on the land. Thus by far the greater number of the birds I have enumerated above belong to the sea, not to the land, and this is the case with nearly all the animals which for three or four hundred years back have been the objects of capture in the Arctic regions. This industry, which during the whale-fishing period yielded a return perhaps equal to that of the American oil-wells in our time, has not now in the most limited degree the importance it formerly had. For the animal whose capture yielded this rich return, the right whale (Balaena mysticetus L.), is now so extirpated in these navigable waters, that the whalers were long ago compelled to seek new fishing-places in other parts of the Polar seas. It is therefore no longer the whale, but other species of animals which attract the hunter to the coasts of Spitzbergen and Novaya Zemlya.

Of these animals the most important for the last fifty years has been the walrus, but it too is in course of being extirpated. It is now seldom found during summer on the west coast of Novaya Zemlya south of Matotschkin Schar. During our visits to that island in 1875, 1876, and 1878 we did not see one of these animals. But in the Kara Gate, on the east coast of Novaya Zemlya, and at certain places in the Kara Sea, abundant hunting is still to be had. Earlier in the year the walrus is also to be met with among the drift-ice on the west coast, and to the south, off the mouth of the Petchora, although the number of the animals that are captured by the Samoyeds at Chabarova appears to be exceedingly small. On the other hand the Dutch, in their first voyages hither, saw a considerable number of these gregarious animals. The walrus, however, did not then occur here in such abundance as they did at the same time on Spitzbergen and Bear Island, which evidently formed their principal haunts.

During Stephen Bennet's third voyage to Bear Island in 1606, 700 to 800 walruses were killed there in six hours, and in 1608 nearly 1,000 in seven hours. The carcases left lying on the beach attracted bears thither in such numbers that, for instance, in 1609 nearly fifty of them were killed by the crew of a single vessel. At one place eighteen bears were seen at once (Purchas, iii. p. 560). A Norwegian skipper was still able during a wintering in 1824-25 to kill 677 walruses. But when Tobiesen wintered there in 1865-66 he killed only a single walrus, and on the two occasions of my landing there I did not see one. Formerly the hunters almost every year, during late autumn when the drift-ice had disappeared, found "walrus on land," i.e. herds of several hundred walruses which had crept up on some low, even, sandy beach, to pass days and weeks there in an almost motionless state. During this period of rest most of them appear to be sunk in deep sleep, yet not all, for—according to the concurrent statements of all the walrus-hunters with whom I have conversed on this subject—they keep a watch to warn their comrades when danger is near. If necessary precautions are observed, i.e. if the hunters approach the beach where the animals are assembled when the wind blows from the land, and kill with the lance those that lie nearest the water, the rest are slaughtered without difficulty, being prevented by the carcases of their dead comrades from reaching the sea. Now such an opportunity for the hunter happens exceedingly seldom; there are famous headlands on which in former times the walrus was found by hundreds, in whose neighbourhood now not a single one is to be seen.

In the sea too there are certain places which the walrus principally haunts, and which are therefore known by the hunters as walrus-banks. Such a bank is to be found in the neighbourhood of Muffin Island, situated on the north coast of Spitzbergen in 80 deg. north latitude, and the animals that have been killed here must be reckoned by thousands. Another bank of the same kind is to be met with in 72 deg. 15' north latitude, on the coast of Yalmal. The reason why the walruses delight to haunt these places is doubtless that they find there abundant food, which does not consist, as has often been stated, of seaweed, but of various living mussels from the bottom of the sea, principally Mya truncata and Saxicava rugosa. Their fleshy parts are freed, before they are swallowed, so remarkably well from the shells, and cleaned so thoroughly, that the contents of the stomach have the appearance of a dish of carefully-shelled oysters. In collecting its food the walrus probably uses its long tusks to dig up the mussels and worms which are deeply concealed in the clay.[78] Scoresby states that in the stomach of a walrus he found, along with small crabs, pieces of a young seal.

The largest walrus tusks I have seen were two of a male walrus purchased in the summer of 1879 at St. Lawrence Island, in the north part of Behring's Sea. They measured 830 and 825 millimetres in length, their largest circumference was 227 and 230 millimetres, and they weighed together 6,680 gram. I have seen the tusks of females of nearly the same length, but they are distinguished from those of the male by being much more slender. The surface of the tusks is always full of cracks, but under it there is a layer of ivory free of cracks, which again incloses a grained kernel of bone which at some places is semi-transparent, as if drenched with oil.

When the walrus ox gets very old, he swims about by himself as a solitary individual, but otherwise animals of the same age and sex keep together in large herds. The young walrus long follows its mother, and is protected by her with evident fondness and very conspicuous maternal affection. Her first care, when she is pursued, is accordingly to save her young even at the sacrifice of her own life. A female walrus with young is nearly always lost, if they be discovered from a hunting boat. However eagerly she may try by blows and cuffs to get her young under water or lead her pursuers astray by diving with it under her forepaw, she is generally overtaken and killed. Such a hunt is truly grim, but the walrus-hunter knows no mercy in following his occupation. The walrus, especially the old solitary male, sleeps and rests during autumn, when the drift-ice has disappeared, also in the water, with his head now above the surface, now under it, and with his lungs so strongly inflated that the body is kept floating, with part of the back projecting out of the water. The latter way of sleeping is indeed possible only for so long at once as the animal can keep below, but this is said to be a very long time. If a hunting boat meets a walrus sleeping in this way it is first wakened with a loud "strike up" before it is harpooned, "in order that in its fright it may not knock a hole in the boat with its tusks." The walrus sinks and is lost, if he is killed by a shot while in the water, or if he be shot while lying on a piece of ice, but without being killed so instantaneously that he cannot cast himself into the water in his death struggles. He is killed accordingly almost exclusively with the harpoon or lance.



The harpoon consists of a large and strong iron hook, very sharp on the outer edge, and provided with a barb. The hook is loosely fixed to the shaft, but securely fastened to the end of a slender line ten fathoms long, generally made of walrus hide. The line is fastened at its other end to the boat, in the forepart of which it lies in a carefully arranged coil. There are from five to ten such harpoon lines in every hunting boat. When the hunters see a herd of walrus, either on a piece of drift-ice or in the water, they endeavour silently and against the wind to approach sufficiently near to one of the animals to be able to harpoon it. If this is managed, the walrus first dives and then endeavours to swim under water all he can. But he is fixed with the line to the boat, and must draw it along with him. His comrades swim towards the boat, curious to ascertain the cause of the alarm. A new walrus is fixed with another harpoon, and so it goes on, one after another, until all the harpoons are in use. The boat is now drawn forward at a whizzing speed, although the rowers hold back with the oars; but there is no actual danger as long as all the animals draw in the same direction. If one of them seeks to take a different course from that of his comrades in misfortune, his line must be cut off, otherwise the boat capsizes. When the walruses get exhausted by their exertions and by loss of blood, the hunters begin to haul in the lines. One animal after the other is drawn to the stem of the boat, and there they commonly first get a blow on the head with the flat of a lance, and when they turn to guard against it, a lance is thrust into the heart. Since breechloaders have begun to be used by the walrus-hunters, they often prefer to kill the harpooned walruses with a ball instead of "lancing" them. To shoot an unharpooned walrus, on the other hand, the walrus hunters formerly considered an unpardonable piece of thoughtlessness, because the animal was in this way generally wounded or killed without any advantage accruing. They therefore expressed themselves with great irritation against the tourists who sometimes came to Spitzbergen, and in this way destroyed the hunting. It cannot however be denied that they themselves in recent times have often followed the bad example, and many consider that this is one of the main reasons of the great diminution in the numbers of the walrus of late years. Should an international code be established for hunting in the Polar sea, all shooting of unharpooned walruses ought to be forbidden in the first place.



Gregariousness and curiosity appear to be the main characteristics of the walrus. These qualities of theirs I had an opportunity of observing when once, on a glorious northern summer day, I rowed forward over a mirror-bright, drift-ice-bestrewn sea right into the midst of a considerable herd of these animals. Part followed the boat long distances quite peaceably, now and then emitting a grunting sound; others swam quite close, and raised themselves high out of the water in order to take a view of the foreigners; others, again, lay so closely packed on pieces of drift-ice as to sink them down to the water's edge, while their comrades swimming about in the sea endeavoured with violence to gain a place on the already overfilled resting-places, though a number of unoccupied pieces of ice floated up and down in the neighbourhood.

When the hunters have killed a female walrus, it often happens that they take the young living. It is easily tamed, and soon regards its keeper with warm attachment. It seeks, as best it can—poorly equipped as it is for moving about on dry land—to follow the seamen on the deck, and gives itself no rest if it be left alone. Unfortunately, one does not succeed in keeping them long alive, probably because it is impossible to provide them with suitable food. There are instances, however, of the young of the walrus being brought to Europe alive. Thus it is said (Purchas, iii., p. 560), that Master Welden and Stephen Bennet, on the 22nd/12th July, 1608, caught two young walruses alive, one a male and the other a female. The female died before they reached England, but the male lived ten weeks. He was carried to court, shown to the king and many honourable gentlemen, and excited general admiration for his extraordinary form and great docility. A young walrus that was taken to St. Petersburg in 1829-30, also died in a short time. It gave occasion to K.E. von BAER'S famous treatise: "Anatomische und zoologische Untersuchungen ueber das Wallross," printed in Memoires de l'Academie Imperiale des Sciences de St. Petersbourg, ser. vi., t. iv. 2, 1838, p. 97.

The walrus is hunted for its skin, blubber, and oil. The value of a full-grown walrus was calculated at Tromsoe, in 1868, in settling accounts between the owners of hunting sloops and the hunters, at eighty Scandinavian crowns (say 4l. 10s.), but it sank in 1871 to only forty-eight crowns (say 2l. 15s.). The flesh of the walrus is coarse and train-flavoured, and is eaten by the hunters only in cases of necessity. From my own experience, however, I can certify that its comparatively small tongue is very delicious. By the Eskimo and the Chukchis the flesh of the walrus is considered a delicacy.



The walrus was doubtless hunted by the Polar tribes long before the historic period,[79] but it is mentioned for the first time in writing in the sketch of Othere's Arctic journey. The narrative shows that it was then captured on the north coast of Scandinavia. This appears the less improbable, as a walrus now and then even in our days drifts to land on the Norwegian coast, and walruses are still annually killed off Swjatoinos on the Kola peninsula,[80] The walrus is very correctly described in the well-known Norse confession written in the end of the eleventh century, "Konungs skuggsja" (the King's Mirror), as an animal resembling the seal,[81] except that, besides several smaller teeth, it has two large tusks which project beyond the upper jaw. This clear and unexaggerated sketch is however replaced in the later writings of the middle ages by the most extraordinary accounts of the animal's appearance and mode of capture. Thus Albertus Magnus,[82] who died in 1280, says that the walrus is taken by the hunter, while the sleeping animal hangs by its large tusks to a cleft of the rock, cutting out a piece of its skin and fastening to it a strong rope whose other end is tied to trees, posts, or large rings fixed to rocks. The walrus is then wakened by throwing large stones at its head. In its attempts to escape it leaves its hide behind. It perishes soon after, or is thrown up half dead on the beach. He further states that walrus lines on account of their strength are suitable for lifting great weights, and that they are always on sale at Cologne. They were probably used at the building of the Cathedral there. Similar extraordinary representations of the appearance and mode of life of the walrus are repeated in a more or less altered form even by Olaus Magnus, whose representation of the walrus is shown by the accompanying woodcut.

]

]

The 11th/1st of August 1556, the year after the publication of the work of Olaus Magnus, a West European saw for the first time some actual walruses, which had been killed by Russian hunters at Vaygats Island. No description of the animal, however, is given, but from that period all the members of the English and Dutch north-east expeditions had opportunities of seeing walruses in hundreds and thousands. It was now first that man learned actually to know this remarkable animal which had been decked out in so many fables. To this period belongs the beautiful and natural delineation of the walrus which is given above.

A peculiarity of the walrus may be mentioned here. The hide, especially in old males, is often full of wounds and scratches, which appear to be caused partly by combats and scraping against sharp pieces of ice, partly by some severe disease of the skin. Mr. H.W. Elliot has remarked this of the walrus in Behring's Sea[85]. The walrus is also troubled with lice, which is not the case, so far as I know, with any kind of seal. Masses of intestinal worms are found instead in the stomach of the seal, while on the contrary none are found in that of the walrus.

With reference to the other animals that are hunted in the Polar Sea I am compelled to be very brief, as I have scarcely any observations to make regarding them which are not already sufficiently known by numerous writings.

There are three kinds of seals on Novaya Zemlya. Storsaelen, the bearded seal (Phoca barbata, Fabr.) occurs pretty generally even on the coasts of Spitzbergen, though never in large flocks. The pursuit of this animal is the most important part of the seal-fishing in these waters, and the bearded seal is still killed yearly by thousands. Their value is reckoned in settling accounts between owners and hunters at twenty to twenty-five Scandinavian crowns (say 22s. to 27s. 6d.).



Groenlands or Jan-Mayen-saelen, the Greenland seal (Phoca Groenlandica Muller), which at Jan Mayen gives occasion to so profitable a fishing, also is of general occurrence among the drift-ice in the Munnan and Kara seas.

Snadden, the rough or bristled seal (Phoca hispida, Erxl.) is also common on the coast. These animals in particular are seen to lie, each at its hole, on the ice of fjords, which has not been broken up. It also many times follows with curiosity in the wake of a vessel for long distances, and can then be easily shot, because it is often so fat that, unlike the two other kinds of seals, it does not sink when it has been shot dead in the water.

Klapmytsen, the bladdernose seal, (Cystophora cristata, Erxl.) the walrus-hunters say they have never seen on Novaya Zemlya, but it is stated to occur yearly in pretty large numbers among the ice W.S.W. of South Cape on Spitzbergen. Only once during our many voyages in the Polar Sea has a Klapmyts been seen, viz, a young one that was killed in 1858 in the neighbourhood of Bear Island.

Of the various species of whales, the narwhal, distinguished by its long and valuable horn projecting in the longitudinal direction of the body from the upper jaw, now occurs so seldom on the coast of Novaya Zemlya that it has never been seen there by the Norwegian walrus-hunters. It is more common at Hope Island, and Witsen states (p. 903) that large herds of narwhals have been seen between Spitzbergen and Novaya Zemlya.



The white whale or beluga, of equal size with the narwhal, on the other hand, occurs in large shoals on the coasts of Spitzbergen and Novaya Zemlya, especially near the mouths of fresh-water streams. These animals were formerly captured, but not with any great success, by means of a peculiar sort of harpoon, called by the hunters "skottel." Now they are caught with nets of extraordinary size and strength, which are laid out from the shore at places which the white whales are wont to frequent. In this way there were taken in the year 1871, when the fishing appears to have been most productive, by vessels belonging to Tromsoe alone, 2,167 white whales. Their value was estimated at fifty-four Scandinavian crowns each (about 3l.). The fishing, though tempting, is yet very uncertain; it sometimes falls out extraordinarily abundant, as in the spring of 1880, when a skipper immediately on arriving at Magdalena Bay caught 300 of these animals at a cast of the net. Of the whales thus killed not only the blubber and hide are taken away, but also, when possible, the carcases, which, when cheap freight can be had, are utilised at the guano manufactories in the north of Norway. After having lain a whole year on the beach at Spitzbergen they may be taken on board a vessel without any great inconvenience, a proof that putrefaction proceeds with extreme slowness in the Polar regions.



With its blinding milk-white hide, on which it is seldom possible to discover a spot, wrinkle, or scratch, the full-grown white whale is an animal of extraordinary beauty. The young whales are not white, but very light greyish brown. The white whale is taken in nets not only by the Norwegians at Spitzbergen, but also by the Russians and Samoyeds at Chabarova. In former times they appear to have been also caught at the mouth of the Yenisej, to judge by the large number of vertebrae that are found at the now deserted settlements there. The white whale there goes several hundred kilometres up the river. I have also seen large shoals of this small species of whale on the north coast of Spitzbergen and the Taimur peninsula.

Other species of the whale occur seldom on Novaya Zemlya. Thus on this occasion only two small whales were seen during our passage from Tromsoe, and I do not remember having seen more than one in the sea round Novaya Zemlya in the course of my two previous voyages to the Yenisej. At the north part of the island, too, these animals occur so seldom, that a hunter told me, as something remarkable, that towards the end of July, 1873, W.N.W. of the western entrance to Matotschkin Schar 20' to 30' from land, he had seen a large number of whales, belonging to two species, of which one was a slaethval, and the other had as it were a top, instead of a fin, on the back.

It is very remarkable that whales still occur in great abundance on the Norwegian coast, though they have been hunted there for a thousand years back, but, on the other hand, if we except the little white whale, only occasionally east of the White Sea. The whale fishing which was carried on on so grand a scale on the west coast of Spitzbergen, has therefore never been prosecuted to any great extent on Novaya Zemlya; and fragments of skeletons of the whale which are found thrown up in such quantities on the shores of Spitzbergen, are not to be found, so far as my experience reaches, either on the shores of Novaya Zemlya, on the coast of the Kara Sea, or at the places on the north coast of Siberia between the Yenisej and the Lena, at which we landed. The sacrifices which were so long made in vain in the endeavour to find a passage to China in this direction accordingly were not compensated, as on Spitzbergen, by the rise of a profitable whale fishery. Meeting with a whale is spoken of by the first seafarers in these regions as something very remarkable and dangerous; for instance, in the account of Stephen Burrough's voyage in 1556:—"On St. James his day, there was a monstrous whale aboord of us, so neere to our side that we might have thrust a sworde or any other weapon in him, which we durst not doe for feare lie should have over-throwen our shippe; and then I called my company together, and all of us shouted, and with the crie that we made he departed from us; there was as much above water of his back as the bredth of our pinnesse, and at his falling down he made such a terrible noise in the water, that a man would greatly have marvelled, except he had known the cause of it; but, God be thanked, we were quietly delivered of him."[86] When Nearchus sailed with the fleet of Alexander the Great from the Indus to the Red Sea, a whale also caused so great a panic that it was only with difficulty that the commander could restore order among the frightened seamen, and get the rowers to row to the place where the whale spouted water and caused a commotion in the sea like that of a whirlwind. All the men now shouted, struck the water with their oars, and sounded their trumpets, so that the large, and, in the judgment of the Macedonian heroes, terrible animal, was frightened. It seems to me that from these incidents we may draw the conclusion that great whales in Alexander's time were exceedingly rare in the sea which surrounds Greece, and in Burrough's time in that which washes the shores of England. Quite otherwise was the whale regarded on Spitzbergen some few years after Burrough's voyage by the Dutch and English whalers. At the sight of a whale all men were out of themselves with joy, and rushed down into the boats in order from them to attack and kill the valuable animal. The fishery was carried on with such success, that, as has already been stated, the right whale (Balaena mysticetus L.), whose pursuit then gave full employment to ships by hundreds, and to men by tens of thousands, is now practically extirpated. Thus during our many voyages in these waters we have only seen one such whale, which happened on the 23rd June, 1864, among the drift-ice off the west coast of Spitzbergen in 78 deg. N.L. As the right whale still occurs in no limited numbers in other parts of the Polar Sea, and as there has been no whale fishing on the coast of Spitzbergen for the last forty or fifty years, this state of things shows how difficult it is to get an animal type to return to a region where it has once been extirpated, or from which it has been driven away.