102 



THE VOYAGE OF THE VEGA. 



[chap. 



The mode of life of the Spitzbergen ptarmigan is thus widely 

 different from that of the Scandinavian ptarmigan, and its flesh 

 also tastes differently. For the bird is exceedingly fat, and its 

 flesh, as regards flavour, is intermediate between black-cock and 

 fat goose. ^ We may infer from this that it is a great delicacy. 



When I was returning, in the autumn of 1872, from an ex- 

 cursion of some length along the shore of Wijde Bay, I fell in 

 with one of our sportsmen, who had in his hand a white bird 

 marked with black spots, which he showed me as a " very large 

 ptarmigan." In doing so, however, he fell into a great ornitho- 

 logical mistake, for it was not a ptarmigan at all, but another 



THE SNOWY OWL. ' 



Swedish, Fjellnggla. (Strij: nyctca, L.) 



kind of bird, similarly marked in winter, namely, fjellugglan, 

 the walrus-hunter's isocrn, the snowy owl (Strix nyctca, L.). It 

 evidently breeds and winters at the ptarmigan-fell, which it 

 appears to consider as its own poultry-yard. In fact, the 

 marking of this bird of prey is so similar to that of its victim 

 that the latter can scarcely peihaps know how to take care of 

 itself. On Spitzbergen the snowy owl is very rare ; but on 

 Novaya Zemlya and the North coast of Asia — where the lem- 

 ming, which is wanting on Spitzbergen, occurs in great crowds 



1 Hedenstroin also states (OtnjivJd o Sibiri, St. Petersburg, 1830, p. 130,) 

 that the ptarmigan winters on tlie New Siberian Islands, and that there it 

 is fatter and more savoury than on the mainland. . 



