M. Baer on Animal Life in Nova Zeinbla. 99 



species : the one seems to be the Mas groenlandicus of Traill, 

 or Mas hudsoniiis Auct, ; and corresponds exactly with the 

 description published by Richardson in his " Fauna boreali- 

 Americana,-' though it agrees less completely with the account 

 given by Pallas ; and the other species appears to me to be 

 also distinct fi'om the ScandinaA'ian lemming, indeed the co- 

 lour is strikingly different, but Pallas, who seems to have had 

 onl}^ young specimens before him, considers it as the Russian 

 variety of the Scandinavian lemming. The first is remark- 

 able for its tameness, for, four and twenty hours after being 

 captured, it hardly attempted to escape when held freely in 

 the hand ; and two individuals of that species are never seen 

 quarrelling with each other. The other or yellowish-brown 

 species is much more quarrelsome. 



Though not so abundant as the lemmings, Polar foxes are 

 rather common. They find abundant food in lemmings, young 

 birds, and the animals thrown ashore by the waves. Polar 

 bears are rarely seen in summer, either because they avoid 

 places where they scent human beings, or because they only 

 collect at those points on the coast vi'here there is ice. The 

 rein-deer, also, OAving to the number of walrus-fishers who pass 

 the Avinter there, have become scarce, at least on the west 

 coast, during the last few years. Not only were but very few 

 killed during our stay in the counti'y, but one of the parties 

 who had spent the previous winter in Nova Zembla, and had 

 been instructed to support themselves by hunting .the rein- 

 deer, had not been able to obtain any. Wolves and common 

 foxes, which occasionally occur, at least in the southern half 

 of Nova Zembla, seem never to have been numerous. With 

 the above enumeration, the notice of the land mammalia 

 would be complete, were it not that Messrs Pachtussow and 

 Ziwolka, during their winter residence in a hut, saw a little 

 white animal, which they call a mouse in their journal. As 

 the animal, according to Ziwolka's account, was larger than a 

 common domestic mouse, and tlierefore could not be an indi- 

 vidual of the white kind which had been taken there acci- 

 dentally by a ship, 1 am doubtful what to make of the obser- 

 vation. On the one hand, it has been said that the North 

 American lemmings become white in winter, but still not so 



