II] ] THE ANBIAL WORLD OF NOVAYA ZEMLYA. 83 



to a great extent carry on the same modes of life as themselves, 

 has led some authors to assume a close affinity between the 

 Samoyeds and the Fins and the Finnish races in general. The 

 speech of the two neighbouring tribes however affords no 

 ground for such a supposition. Even the language of the 

 Ostjak, which is the most closely related to that of the 

 Samoyeds, is separated heaven-wide from it and has nothing 

 in common with it, except a small number of borrowed words 

 (chiefly names of articles from the Polar nomad's life), which the 

 Ostjak has taken from the language of his northern neighbour. 

 With respect to their language, however, the Samoyeds are 

 said to stand at a like distance from the other branches of the 

 stem in question. To what extent craniology or the modern 

 anthropology can more accurately determine the affinity-relation- 

 ship of the Samoyed to other tribes, is still a question of 

 the future. 



CHAPTER III. 



From the Animal World of Novaya Zemlya — The Fulmar Petrel — The 

 Rotge or Little Auk — Briinnich's Guillemot — The Black Guillemot — 

 The Arctic Puffin— The Gulls— Richardson's Skua— the Tern— Ducks 

 and Geese— The Swan^Waders — The Snow Bunting — The Ptarmigan 

 —The Snowy Owl— The Reindeer— The Polar Bear— The Mountain Fox 

 — The Lemming — Insects — The Walrus — The Seal — Whales. 



If we do not take into account the few Samoyeds who of 

 recent years have settled on Novaya Zemlya or wander about 

 during summer on the plains of Vaygats Island, all the lands 

 which in the old worVl have formed the field of research of 

 the Polar explorer — Spitzbergen, Franz-Josef Land, Novaya 

 Zemlya, Vaygats Island, the Taimur Peninsula, the New 

 Siberian Islands, and perhaps AVrangel's Land al.^o — are unin- 

 habited. The pictures of life and variety, which the native, 

 with his peculiar manners and customs, commonly offers to the 

 foreigner in distant foreign lands, are not to be met with here. 

 But, instead, the animal life, which he finds there m summer — 

 for durinq' winter almost all beings who live above the surface of 

 the sea disappear from the highest North — is more vigorous and 

 perhaps even more abundant, or, to speak more correctly, less 

 concealed by the luxuriance of vegetation than in tlie south. 



It is not, however, the larger mammalia — whales, walruses, 

 seals, bears and reindeer— that attract attention in the first place, 

 but the innumerable flocks of birds that swarm around tlie Polar 

 traveller during the long simimer day of the North. 



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