288 A HUNGRY FOX. 



board than all hands, including the young 

 bears, could eat in a month, we contented our 

 selves by picking out a few of the old stags 

 with the best horns we could find. 



The tongues of the reindeer are particularly 

 delicious, and we salted a small keg of these 

 for distribution among our friends at home. 



We have now secured splendid specimens of 

 all the Spitzbergen animals worthy of a sports 

 man s attention, except the narwhale and the 

 black fox. These are both very rare, and we 

 never had the satisfaction of adding the long 

 spiral horn of the one, or the beautiful skin of 

 the other, to our collections. 



On a promontory of sandy beach, near our 

 anchorage, there were always a lot of gulls 

 resting, and a small white fox, apparently half- 

 mad with hunger, continued the whole day 

 making unavailing efforts to stalk them. He 

 would go away for half an hour, until he 

 thought the gulls might have gone to sleep, 

 and then come sneaking back to try it again ; 

 but the gulls were always too wide-awake for 

 him. 



There are a great many foxes on this part of 

 Spitzbergen, and it is rather a curious subject 

 to speculate upon how they subsist in winter ? 



