320 BIRDS LIVING UNDER SNOW DRIFTS. 



weight of from 8 to 14 Ibs. "These hares" (he says) 

 u are pure white, with black tips to the ears, and 

 under apparently very adverse circumstances, live in 

 burrows or holes scraped horizontally into a snowdrift, " 

 where he thinks they mainly feed on " Saxifraga 

 Oppositifolia," the hardy plant of which we have already 

 spoken, as found growing all over the polar regions, 

 which even where it was " opposed to the wind," 

 bears " delicate green buds " that are nibbled off by the 

 hares. * In a game list which is appended to Capt. Nares' 

 2nd volume it appears that 216 of these hares, 63 musk 

 oxen, 8 foxes and one reindeer were killed by the 

 members of this expedition, f There can be little 

 or no doubt therefore, that the polar hare mainly 

 lives beneath the snows, much as the lemming and 

 other animals do, during the winter season; because 

 on some days the members of the expedition were 

 occasionally able to secure 3 or 4 of them ; and then 

 again perhaps for a long time there were no more of 

 them to be seen. During the dreary solitude and 

 tedium of the long polar night, these sporting adven- 

 tures often prove a valuable source of interest to 

 imprisoned explorers. And in addition to hares, birds 

 can also occasionally be shot; of these the rock 

 ptarmigan (Lagopus Rupestris] is by far the most 

 common. Its range, in all probability, extends to 

 the pole, and certainly goes beyond the furthest 

 point yet reached by man, close to which tracks 

 of ptarmigan were clearly visible in the snow, as 

 well as at intervals all the way up to it. The 



* Voyage to the Polar Sea, by Capt. Sir Geo. Nares, R.N., Vol. ii, 

 1878, pp. 204, 205. 



f Ibid. Appendix to Vol. ii, pp. 352, 353. 



