III.] 



THE MOUNTAIN FOX. 



113 



In 1609 Stephen Bennet, during his seventh voyage to Bear 

 Island, captured two young Polar bears, which were brought to 

 England and kept at Paris Garden (Purchas, iii. p. 562). Now 

 such animals are very frequently brought to Norway in order to 

 be sent from thence to the zoological gardens of Europe, 

 in which the Polar bear is seldom wanting. The capture is 

 facilitated by the circumstance that the young bears seldom 

 leave their mother when she is killed. 



Along with the reindeer and the bear there are found in 

 the regions now in question only two other land-mammalia, 

 the mountain fox [Vulpcs lagopus L.) and the lemming (Mi/ode» 

 ohensis Brants). ^ The fox is rather common both on Spitz- 

 bergen and Novaya Zemlya. Its abode sometimes consists of 



POLAR BEARS. 



After Glaus Magnus (1555). 



a number of passages excavated in the ground and con- 

 nected together, with several openings. Such a nest I saw on 

 Wahlberg's Island in Hinloopen Strait on the summit of a 

 fowl-fell; it was abundantly provided with a stock of half- 

 rotten guillemots, concealed in the passages. The old foxes 

 were not visible while we were there, but several young ones, 

 some black, some variegated red and white, ran hither and 

 thither from out the openings and played with supple move- 

 ments in the neighbourhood of the nest. A similar nest also, 

 with young that ran between its openings, played and hunted 

 each other, I have seen on the north shore of Matotschkin 



1 It is stated that wolves also occur on Novaya Zemlya as far up as to 

 Alatotsclikin Sound. They are exceedingly common on the north coasts of 

 Asia and Eastern Europe. 



