194 APPENDIX. No. II. 



to this time we had not obtained these animals in northern 

 Grrinnell Land. Then to our surprise we discovered numerous 

 deposits of dead lemmings ; in one hidden nook under a rock 

 we pulled out a heap of over fifty. We disturbed numerous 

 ' caches ' of twenty and thirty, and the ground was honey- 

 combed with holes each of which contained several bodies of 

 these little animals, a small quantity of earth being placed over 

 them. In one hole we found the greater part of a hare hidden 

 away. The wings of young brent geese were also lying about ; 

 and as these birds were at that date only just hatching, it 

 showed that they must have been the results of successful 

 forays of prior seasons, and that consequently the foxes occupy 

 the same abodes from year to year. I had long wondered 

 how the Arctic fox existed during the winter. Professor 

 Newton had already suggested, in his ' Notes on the Zoology 

 of Spitsbergen,' l that it laid up a store of provisions, and I 

 was much pleased by thus being able to prove his theory 

 correct. Although I subsequently saw a second pair in the same 

 neighbourhood, yet the Arctic fox may be considered somewhat 

 rare in the northern part of Grrinnell Land. The specimens 

 obtained did not differ in size from those killed further south. 

 3. Mustela erminea (Linn.) — The ermine has followed 

 the lemming in its northern migrations to the shores of the 

 Polar Basin, and crossing Eobeson Channel in pursuit of that 

 little rodent, it has invaded North Greenland, where Lieu- 

 tenant Beaumont secured an example during his sledge jour- 

 ney in latitude 82° 15' N. On the eastern shore of Green- 

 land, where it was found by the Germans, 2 it doubtless 

 extends as far south as the range of the lemming. I obtained 

 specimens in Grinnell Land as far north as 82° 30', and 

 several examples were shot near Discovery Bay. It is hunted 

 and killed by the Arctic fox. We noticed the ^tracks of this 

 'little animal in the snow on the reappearance of sunlight, and 

 remarked that it is infested by a Tcevia. 



1 < Proc. Zonl. Soc.,' 1864, p. 496. 



2 ' Zweite Deutsch. Nordpolarf.' II. p. 109. 



