III.] POLAR ANIMAL LIFE. 115 



Zemlya, dv^ring the same expedition, nine species of coleoptera, 

 which were determined by Professor F. W. Maklin, of liel- 

 singfors.^ , Some feAV hemiptera and lepidoptera and orthoptera, 

 imd a large number of hymenoptera and diptera from the same 

 expedition have been examined by Lector A. E. Holmgren of 

 Stockhohii. Dr. Stuxberg also collected a large number of 

 land-worms, which have been described by our countryman Dr. 

 G. EiSEN, now settled in California. The occurrence of ^this 

 animal group in a region where the ground at the depth of a 

 few inches is continually frozen, appears to me exceedingly 

 remarkable — and from a general point of view the occurrence of 

 insects in a land which is exposed to a winter cold below the 

 freezing-point of mercury, and where the animal cannot seek 

 protection from it by creeping down to a stratum of earth which 

 never freezes, presupposes that either the insect itself, its egg, 

 larva, or pupa, may be frozen stiff without being killed. Only 

 very few species of these small animals, however, appear to 

 survive such a freezing test, and the actual land -e vertebrate- 

 fauna of the Polar countries is therefore exceedingly scanty in 

 comparison with that of more southerly regions. 



It is quite otherwise as regards the sea. Here animal life is 

 exceedingly abundant as far as man has succeeded in making his 

 way to the farthest north. At nearly every sweep the dredge 

 brings up from the sea-bottom masses of decapods, Crustacea, 

 mussels, asterids, echini,^ &c., in varying forms, and the surface 

 of the sea on a sunny day swarms with pteropods, beroids, 

 surface-crustacea, &c. Dr. Stuxberg will give, farther on, a 

 sketch of this department of animal life, which in the high 

 north is so rich in variety. In the meantime I can but refer to 

 the large number of papers on this subject which have been 

 issued in the publications of the Swedish Academy of Sciences. 



Of the higher animal types a greater number within the Polar 

 territory occur in the sea than on the land. Thus by far the greater 



•^ As the only Chrysomela, which von Baer found at Matotschkin Schar, 

 played so great a role in Arctic-zoological literature, I shall here enumerate 

 the species of coleoptera, now known — after Professor Miiklin's determina- 

 tion of the collections which we brought home with us- — to exist on Novaya 

 Zemlya. These are : — Feronia horealis M^n^tr., F. gelida Makl., Amara 

 alpina Fabr., Agahus sulqiiadratus Motsch., Homalota sibirka Miikl., 

 Homalium angustatum Makl., Cylletron (?) hyperhoreitm Makl., Chri/somela 

 sepientrionalis (?) M^n^tr., Prasocuris hannoverana Fabr., v. degenerata. 

 From Vaygats Island we brought home seven species more, which were 

 not found on Novaya Zemlya. The insects occur partly under stones, 

 especially at places where lemming dung is abundant, or in tracts where 

 birds'-nests are numerous, partly in warm days on willow-bushes. 



- Echini occur only very sparingly in the Kara Sea and the Siberian 

 Polar Sea, but west of Novaya Zemlya at certain places in such numbers 

 that they almost appear to cover the sea-bottom. 



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