402 P. Freuchen. 



night; they were feeding on the slopes which then faced towards the 

 sun. Saw hares everyv\^here throughout the valley, and shot several. 

 They arc now fast shedding their fur. On the 10th July, the last day 

 of our stay, I counted 24 at the foot of a hill, in two flocks. 



In Game Land also the hares are everywhere abundant. Eskimos 

 who have made excursions into Ellesmere Land — where the hares are 

 so numerous that "the ground is lousy with them" as they say — are 

 there obliged to hide their meat from the hares, as the latter will jump 

 up on to the roofs of the huts and devour any meat which may be there. 

 This phenomenon I have never seen referred to by any other writer: 

 Knud Rasmussen has, however, on his journeys in Ellesmere Land, 

 frequently noticed the same thing. We had also an opportunity of 

 witnessing it ourselves here. It happened continually, when we had 

 shot a musk ox, and left some of the meat to dry on the spot, or to be 

 brought away later, that hares were found nibbling at it. I had also 

 cut out the stomach of a hare, containing remains of meat, and intended 

 to bring it home; unfortunately, however, the dogs got hold of it and 

 devoured it. 



On reaching the west coast on our way back, we saw a number 

 of hares at Qaqujârssuaq, behind Inglefield Gulf, and shot four. 



3. Lemming. Myodes iorquatus. 



All along the east coast, wherever we went, we found traces of 

 lemmings. Immediately after our descent from the inland ice, as also 

 on our way down through Zigzag Valley, we found their tracks in the 

 snow ; their frequency, as also that of the fox tracks far up in the country, 

 and also of stoat tracks, would seem to indicate that the animals them- 

 selves must be extremely numerous. Both in Danmarks Fjord and in 

 Independence Fjord we saw tracks leading out over the ice, away from 

 land. At Cape Rigsdagen, we saw about a score of tracks running out 

 over the sea ice in a north-easterly direction. The ice for the first two 

 kilometres out from land was ground and piled up into heavy rugged 

 masses ; beyond this lay the level ice over which we drove. And it was 

 here, on the level ice beyond the barrier, that we found the tracks of 

 the lemmings, so that the animals must have managed to make their 

 way over the piled up masses without getting out of their course, which 

 led, as already mentioned, straight away from land, out towards the 

 open sea. 



On the 5th July, we reached Peary Land. Here, on a slope by the 

 shore, which, facing south, had been thawed clear, we came upon one 

 of their winter nests ; there were several others close by. All over Peary 

 Land we were continually coming upon their winter quarters, and tracks 

 leading out over the ice. As usual, there were small heaps of excrements 

 near each nest; we found also remains of lemmings everywhere, in the 

 excrements of foxes, or in owl-pellets. A remarkable feature was the 



