Oliliu , Zoological observations during Peary Auxiliary Expedition 1894. 



Smith Sound, for a great many individuals were killed last winter in 

 Inglefield Gulf by Peary's companions. Here as well as in the 

 packice off Cape York we observed several seals of which I am quite 

 sure that they belonged to this species. 



The third form of the genus Phoca which, I think, is not very 

 rare in Baffin Bay is 



5. Phoca groenlandica. The Greenland seal seems to like, in 

 these regions as well as in other seas which it frequents, the vast 

 packice-fields far from the coast. On our northward trip in Melville 

 Bay and on our passage to Carey-Islands we saw many great herds 

 of a seal belonging, without doubt, to the saddleback. Also, in the 

 packice along the coast of Ellesmere Land from Cape Faraday into 

 Jones Sound so far as we penetrated it, i. e. , some few miles west 

 from Cone Island in hit. 70 20' N. and long. 81 40' W., we met 

 with the ..harpseal" as this species is called by the sailors from 

 New-Foundland. 



6. Cystophora crixtata. - Although this large seal does not fre- 

 quent Baffin Bay or Smith Sound, I mention it, because, on our north- 

 ward trip to Disco, we killed five specimens all of them being old 

 males. This summer, in the midst of July, the hooded seal was to 

 be met with in considerable number in the East Greenland ice or 

 ,,stor-is" as is the Danish name of that kind of ice which, as is well 

 known, >'s floating with the cold arctic current along the East Green- 

 land coast through the Strait of Denmark round Cap Farewell so far 

 north as to Holsteinsborg in hit. (>7 N. This big ice occurred for 

 the first time when we sighted Greenland July 12 in lat. (50 23' X. 

 off Cape Desolation some miles northwest from Cape Farewell. In 

 this ice we steamed for two days not very far from the coast, and 

 everywhere we saw the ..klapmyds" of the Norwegian whalers sleeping 

 in the bright sunshine on the heavy icefloes. Now again the question 

 rose in my mind how these animals are able to climb the steep and 

 high walls of this ice, a fact that struck me the first time I visited 

 the sea around Jaen Mayen in the year 1891 on board a Norwegian 

 whaler. Nobody has yet observed them, when boarding such an icefloe, 

 the walls of which will, sometimes, rise five or six feet or even more 

 above the water and have no rough borders or steps anywhere. 



7. Odobaenus mxnxirus. - \Yalruses were seen by us in several 

 places as in Melville Bay in lat. 75 50' N. July 21 and in the 

 ,,uorthwater" of Baffin Bay on our passage from Wolstenholnie Island 

 to Carey -Islands July 24, but in greatest number it occurred among 

 the floeice in a little bay west from Cape Faraday. Here the vessel 

 was accompanied by walrus -herds each containing 10 12. Unfor- 

 tunately we did not succeed in capturing them having no harpoons. 

 The bottom of this bar was sandv and had a luxuriant vegetation of 



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