Chap. IX. PARRY'S POLAR VOYAGE. 311 



in good condition ; they were met with in herds, 

 from six or eight to twenty. Three bears were 

 killed, one of which was of more than ordinary 

 dimensions, measuring eight feet four inches from 

 the snout to the root of the tail. 



The boat expedition was less fortunate with re- 

 gard to animals; few living creatures were seen, 

 and these mostly gulls, and one insect found on a 

 piece of ice, and it was a dead Aphis. It has a 

 chapter to itself in the Appendix, headed Insect. 

 Parry says, " I am indebted to the friendship of 

 Mr. J. Curtis for the following description of the 

 only insect that was obtained during the voyage." 

 The description gives no intelligible information, 

 only that it resembles another species called A. 

 picea. " The circumstance of the Aphis borealis 

 having been found on floating floes of ice on the 

 Polar Sea, at one hundred miles distance from the 

 nearest known land, and as far north as 82|°, ren- 

 ders it in a more than ordinary degree interesting. 

 As the one it resembles feeds on the silver fir, so it 

 is supposed that the floating trees of fir that are 

 to be found so abundantly on the shores and to the 

 northward of Spitzbergen, might possibly be the 

 means by which this insect has been transported to 

 the northern regions." Perhaps so; but it may 

 be asked by what possible means were the Jirs thus 

 transported ? 



Sir Edward Parry, at the conclusion of his nar- 



