i26 SPITSBERGEN chap, vin 



reniformis, and a number of other plants not yet in flower, 

 besides the mosses. It was strange to meet again in this 

 remote region so many plants that I had found by the 

 glaciers and amongst the crags of the Karakoram- Himalaya. 

 Papaver nudicale and Saxifraga flagellaris recalled a wonder- 

 ful day's march in 1892 up the left bank of the Hispar Glacier, 

 noblest of Asiatic ice-streams. Lychnis apetala grew com- 

 monly by the great Baltoro Glacier in full view of mighty 

 Masherbrum. Potentilla multifield was common at lower 

 levels in Hunza and Nagar. Saxifraga oppositifolia and 

 Saxifraga herculus climb to a height of 17,000 feet and more 

 on the sides of the greatest giants of that most wonderful 

 range. Here they all were again, as bright, and maintaining 

 themselves as happily in the heart of the Arctic regions as 

 on the backbone of Asia. 



The nesting geese by the waterfall gave us constant en- 

 tertainment, unfortunately for them. We thought it was 

 our visits that made them shy, but we were only unwillingly 

 at fault. It was the glaucous gulls, attracted by our camp 

 refuse, who were the real sinners. When they had devoured 

 our leavings they turned their attentions to the nests, eating 

 the eggs one by one and then the fledglings, till not one 

 remained, and the bereaved geese deserted the place. One 

 day I observed four gulls, in solemn conclave, watching me 

 as I cut joints off a reindeer. The birds saw the joints put 

 into a stream of icy water below our snow-patch, and had a 

 great deal to say about them. Fearing what might happen, 

 I knocked the tail-feathers out of one gull with a bullet, but 

 the lesson did not suffice, for on returning to camp that 

 evening we found our meat gone and two birds a hundred 

 yards off sitting by the bones and chuckling at us. Each 

 joint must have weighed as much as a gull ; how they 

 managed to carry them away, without leaving a footprint in 

 the soft bank of our brook, was and remained a mystery. 



