544 ACCOUNT OF THE auctic eegions. 



Clio horealis. — Occurs in vast numbers in some 

 situations near Spitzbergen, but is not found ge- 

 nerally throughout the Arctic Seas. In swim- 

 ming, it brings the tips of its fins almost into con- 

 tact, first on one side and then on the other. I 

 kept several of them alive in a glass of sea-water 

 for about a month, when they gradually wasted 

 away and died *. 



Sepia ? Cuttle-fish. — Found by myself 



in large quantities in the stomachs of different nar- 

 wals, and appearing to constitute their principal 

 food. The species not known. 



Medusa, or Sea-blubber ; Animalcula, &c. — 

 A great number of species of these animals occur 

 in the Arctic Seas, and appear immediately or re- 

 motely to be the chief subsistence of the greater 

 part of the marine and feathered animals frequent- 

 ing the Polar regions. 



The Greenland Sea, frozen and extensive as it is, 

 teems with life. The variety of the animal crea- 

 tion is not indeed very great ; but the quantity 

 of some of the species that occur, is truly im- 

 mense. A calculation of the number of minute 

 medusse, in a small district, has already been 

 attempted, (p. 179- of this volume) ; if to these 

 we add the number of the animalcula that I 

 have observed, the amount, throughout the Spitz- 



» See Fig. 10. PI. XVI., natural sL-^e. 



