242 HIGH CONDITION OF EEINDEEH. 



be a sort of provision of nature to enable these 

 animals to exist through the long Polar winter, 

 as during that inclement season, although they 

 no doubt obtain a little sustenance by picking 

 the dry withered moss from spots which the 

 wind has cleared of snow, as well as by scraping 

 up the snow with their feet to get at it, still they 

 must in a great measure subsist by consuming 

 internally their own fat. The short space of 

 time which suffices for them to lay on this 

 coat of blubber is perfectly extraordinary ; and 

 as scarcely any grass exists even in the most 

 favoured parts of Spitzbergen, this must be 

 chiefly attributable to some excessively nu 

 tritious properties in the mosses on which they 

 feed. The deer killed by my yacht s crew in 

 Bell Sound in July were mere skin and bone, 

 whereas now, in the end of August, every deer 

 we shot was seal-fat, and in all probability 

 their condition goes on improving until the 

 end of September. Of those we killed, even 

 the hinds giving milk and the calves were very 

 fat, and the old stags were perfectly obese, 

 having all over their bodies a sort of cylinder 

 of beautifully hard and white fat about two 

 inches thick in most part s, and at least three 

 inches thick over the haunches and on the 



