348 THE GET^MAN ARCTIC EXPEDITION. 



it somewhat resembles the mole ; the short, long-haired 

 feet were armed with strong claws, and the thick fur was 

 of a greyish-brown colour. 



Lemmings do not seem rare here. Independently of 

 the masses of filth in the entrance of those huts, we had 

 seen earth -holes in several places, which must have 

 belonged to them, and particularly in the neighbourhood 

 of the harbour and Walrus Island. On the latter, on 

 the freshly-fallen snow, in the middle of October were 

 unmistakable tracks of them; and that they are often 

 welcome food to the fox we concluded from finding the 

 dung of these beasts of prey, consisting of nothing but 

 the hair and bones of lemmings. Some tracks, as we 

 have already said, we followed from the south corner 

 of the island over to Walrus Island, which shows that 

 they move late in the year, and also to some distance. 

 Besides these, we saw foxes and reindeer ; hunting the 

 latter was all the more our particular pleasure, that it 

 promised a further supply of fresh meat to our larder. 

 The reindeer, moreover, never appeared in our neigh- 

 bourhood except by ones or twos, were very shy, and 

 were easily driven away by nearing them incautiously. 

 We saw no more of musk-oxen ; on the other hand, on 

 the 20th of October the Germania received the first visit 

 from a polar bear. 



As Dr. Borgen in the twilight was about reading off 

 the depth by the sounding-pole at seven p.m. he suddenly 

 saw a bear about thirty paces from him coming slowly 

 along, most likely attracted by the smell of a dead reindeer 

 which lay by the ship. Unarmed as he was, he hastily 

 returned to the ship, and now, of course, all were on 

 deck with guns ready. But the bear, either from the 



