Olilin, Zoological observations during Peary Auxiliary Expedition 1894. l(j'7 



Channel he has wandered along- the northern coast of Greenland in 

 the valleys of which he has found good feeding- -places as a com- 

 paratively rich veg-etation covers the slopes of the mountains of Inde- 

 pendence Bay at the border of the large inlandice. R. Brown's 

 opinion that Greenland must end in lat. 82 or 83 N. was thus proved 

 to be right by Peary's important discovery. Still we cannot in a 

 satisfactory way account for the disappearance of the musk-ox along 

 the whole eastside of Smith Sound from lat. 82 N. as far south as 

 to Cape York on which coast his bones have been found also by 

 Nares' and Peary's expeditious. Feildeu 1 ), naturalist on board 

 Alert, one of Nares' ships, believes that the Eskimoes exterminated 

 them 2 ); ,,for I imagine few animals are less fitted to elude the wiles 

 of the hunter". Still he says on the next page: ,.When thoroughly 

 frightened they take to the hills, ascending precipitous slopes, and 

 scaling rocks with great agility". This seems me to be a little contra- 

 dictory; other travellers are always speaking of how dangerous is the 

 hunting of the musk-ox and how furiously the old bulls attack the 

 hunter, if he fires at the herd. I do not know what may be the 

 case, but I suppose that the Eskimoes cannot kill the musk-oxen 

 easier than they do the reindeer; the latter animals are very numerous, 

 although they have been hunted by the natives for many years in 

 the same localities where the musk-ox is now totally extinguished. 

 Perhaps the disappearance of the musk-ox can be accounted for even 

 by its competition .with the reindeer for the scarce vegetation which 

 hardly will supply one large herbivorous animal with food. The 

 explanation of the fact is, in any case, very difficult and in trying to 

 solve this problem as well as the one I mentioned regarding the 

 polarbear I think we have to count with factors not yet appreciated 

 by former authors and still fully unknown. 



11. Balaenoptera muscultix. - During our stay at Godhavu on the 

 northward trip, the Eskimoes sighted far out in the sea the floating- 

 body of a big whale. Then Falcon steamed out and brought the 

 carcass into the harbour. It belonged to the above species. - North 

 from Disco I did not observe any right-or finwhales, but on my return 

 to Denmark I saw finwhales several times; the determination of the 

 species being impossible, it is unnecessary to enumerate the localities. 



12. Hyperoodon rostratu*. When cruising in the East Green- 

 land packice off Fredrikshaab I saw some bottlenoses among the ice. 

 As I have supposed once before 3 ), this whale and, probably, all the 



1) G. S. Nares, A narrative of a voyage to the Polar Sea etc. London 

 1878, Vol. 2, p. 199. 



2) 1. c. p. 200. 



3) Ohlin A., Some remarks on the bottlenosewhale (Hypcroodon} in 

 Kongl. Fysiogratiska Siillskapets i Lund Handlingar, Band 4, Lund 1893, p. 6. 



