44 A. L. V. Manniche. 



No less than eleven foxes were shot or caught by one single man 

 in the course of two days. Even these foxes — with a few excep- 

 tions — were very fat, and it was evident that they had been living 

 sumptuously for a good while on the provisions which were intend- 

 ed for the sledge dogs of the expedition. 



Yet in the severest winter time it was hard work for the fox 

 to procure sufficient food. Under the deep layers of snow it was 

 difficult to gain admission to the lemming, the birds had left the 

 country, and thick ice closed the pantries on the inlets and the sea. 



The constant snow-storms especially gave the fox great trouble. 

 Under those unfavourable conditions the foxes showed themselves 

 extraordinarily forward. I often saw them sitting close to the ship's 

 side or near the houses on the beach. Empty conserves boxes 

 which had been thrown out, were licked quite clean by the starving 

 animals, no matter what they had contained. Even the hard frozen 

 dung of the dogs was not despised by the foxes. I found a fox's 

 stomach quite filled with bits of rope and string which had been 

 gnawed to pieces. They were very easily caught in the springes 

 and traps set out for them, though often the bait employed might 

 seem anything but tempting. I thus caught seven foxes on one day. 

 Repeatedly I found the foxes which had been caught in traps, torn 

 to pieces and partly devoured by their hungry companions. The 

 chief part of the foxes caught in winter were extremely emaciated. 

 — I did not find any rests of vegetables in the fox's stomachs which 

 I examined, not even at times of the year, when the animal's con- 

 ditions of support were the most severe. Moreover the vegetable 

 dishes which North-East Greenland is able to offer, especially in the 

 winter, are anything but inviting to a carnivorous animal, even to 

 an arctic fox. 



On the edge of those holes in the snow which had been dug 

 up by the fox in its search for lemmings, I very often saw the hard 

 frozen stomach of the lemming, highly distended by vegetable mat- 

 ter, lying side by side with the dung left by the fox. That a hun- 

 gry fox will reject such a disproportionately large part of the hard- 

 ly gained and highly favoured prey which decidedly the lemming 

 is, seems to prove that on the whole the animal does not eat any 

 of the plants growing in these tracts of the country. 



Gradually as the ptarmigans appeared in the country in Febru- 

 ary and March, the fox was also seen in pursuit of these. Yet I 

 never had the opportunity of seeing the animal carrying on this 

 chase with profit. In a single case I found some feathers of ptar- 

 migans lying outside the entrance to a fox's den. 



During its wanderings on the ice the fox does not hesitate to 



