392 THE GERMAN ARCTIC EXPEDITION. 



new number of tlio paper appeared on Sunday, which, 

 by its diminutive size, showed the decrease of material. 



Mr. Tramnitz and Dr. Copeland went hunting, and 

 brought home four ptarmigan, objects as welcome to the 

 unaccustomed stomach as to the long-idle hands of the 

 zoologists. The collection was increased by a few skins, 

 and examinations made as to the food of these native 

 birds of the extreme north. The crops of all were full, 

 and were about the size of a boy's fist. The contents con- 

 sisted chiefly of young willow shoots, only here and there by 

 chance was a little moss, or a few leaves and dry sprouts 

 of a species of saxifrage and other shrubs. Thus while 

 in summer, as we have seen, the ptarmigan feeds on fresh 

 herbs and seeds, which it finds on the mountains, in 

 winter time it confines itself to the willow, which is easily 

 obtainable. 



The 3rd of January was still a dark, foggy day; 

 truly there is something very solemn in this universal 

 silence, this unbroken sleep of organic nature. " The 

 stillness of an Arctic winter," writes First Lieu- 

 tenant Payer, " has something awful about it ; the 

 gloomy shade under which life passes, without one 

 charm, is burdensome to the spirit. Every sound of 

 creation is silenced ; the whispering and gurgling of the 

 springs and brooks have died away ; the breaking of the 

 waves is mute ; the waterfall stands motionless against the 

 cold wall of rock ; the plants, choked under their covering 

 of snow, seem for ever destroyed. Animals that had 

 migrated, either to the outer edge of the pack-ice or to 

 milder latitudes, have withdrawn to the interior or begun 

 their winter sleep. No faint sunshine colours the heights, 

 shedding its beams on the glistening masses of ice on 



