ARCTIC BUTTERFLIES CLARK 269 



than perhaps might be expected. Indeed, there are years in which 

 the island may be circumnavigated without difficulty. 



On Novaya Zemlya plant life is restricted to usually small patches, 

 and it possesses but a scanty flora. In all there are about 160 differ- 

 ent kinds of flowering plants, which show affinities rather with Arctic 

 Asia than with Arctic Europe. The desolate land shows hardly a 

 trace of animal life. Even insects are few both in kinds and numbers. 

 But inhospitable as this island is to land-living creatures, it is the 

 home of three different kinds of butterflies. 



In rigorous regions such as these, butterflies are found, ranging 

 northward to scarcely more than 500 miles from the Pole itself. 

 Much farther south than this are regions seemingly more attractive 

 and hospitable where no butterflies exist. 



UNCONGENIAL REGIONS FARTHER SOUTH 



Four hundred miles north-northwest of the North Cape, Europe's 

 most northern point, somewhat farther south than Grinnell Land, 

 lies the archipelago of Spitzbergen. A group of rocky, barren, and 

 ice-bound islands lost in the Arctic Ocean — such is the Spitzbergen 

 archipelago. High mountains and ice-covered plateaus make up the 

 greater portion of its surface. Thanks to the influence of the north- 

 easterly drift from the Gulf Stream, its climate is less severe than 

 that in the corresponding latitudes of Greenland and the islands 

 farther west. At Mussel Bay the average temperature for January 

 is 14.1° and for July 39.3°. Even in the coldest winter months a thaw 

 may set in for a few days ; but on the other hand snow sometimes falls 

 in July and August. Spring comes in June, and by the end of that 

 month the temperature has ceased to fall below the freezing point at 

 night. 



Spitzbergen supports nearly 100 different kinds of plants, of 

 which more than 80 are found also in Greenland, and about 70 live 

 also in Scandinavia. Forty-three of them are very widely spread in 

 Alpine regions, and have been found even as far away as the Hima- 

 layas. The vegetation of the northern portion recalls that of Mel- 

 ville Island, west of Baffin Land, while that of the south has much 

 in common with that of Lapland and the European Alpine regions. 

 With a milder temperature than that of Grinnell Land, and more 

 different kinds of plants, one might expect Spitzbergen to be a 

 more favorable habitat for butterflies. But no butterflies live there. 

 The only representatives of the Lepidoptera are three different kinds 

 of moths. 



East of Spitzbergen and slightly farther to the northward lies 

 the ice-bound archipelago of Franz Josef Land. Here there are 



