APPENDIX. 489 



It is one of the quadrupeds which ascends into the 

 highest latitudes, being an inhabitant of Spitzbergen, 

 Nova Zembla, Greenland, and Parry's Islands. The 

 o-ravid females hybernate under the snow ; but the males 

 and other females travel over the ice in winter in quest 

 of open water. This fact was established beyond a 

 doubt in 1826-7, when the Dundee whaler wintered in 

 Baffin's Bay. This ship was beset in latitude 74° in Sep- 

 tember, and got clear in latitude 62 J° in April: the 

 pack of ice in which she was enclosed having drifted 

 through Baffin's Bay, and obliquely across Davis' Strait, 

 in the course of eight months. In the beginning of 

 February, when the ship was in latitude 68° 45' N., a 

 whale being harpooned at the distance of sixty miles 

 from the land, many bears, foxes, and sharks came to 

 feed on the crang, very much to the delight of the crew, 

 who were rejoiced to add to their scanty allowance of 

 provisions the flesh of such bears and sharks as they 

 succeeded in killing. * 



The Wolverene. Gulo luscus. (Sabine.) F. B. A. 



1. p. 41. 



The quickehatch, or wolverene, is another inhabitant 

 of the high latitudes — its remains having been found in 

 Parry's Islands, near the 75th parallel. It is a strong 

 cunning animal, of which many marvellous stories have 

 been told ; and is greatly disliked by the martin-trappers, 

 on account of the injury it does by carrying off their baits, 

 and thus rendering fruitless the labour of many days. 



* Voyage to Davis' Strait, by David Duncan. London, 1827. 



