FUGLEPJORD. 201 



In the autumn, when the young ice forms, the seals have at 

 first a number of holes, but by degrees they abandon the ones 

 which are most exposed to the frost, keeping only those which are 

 protected amid the pressure-ice and where the snow is most easily 

 dammed up. When the seal goes up and down through the open- 

 ing, the snow near the hole is partly rubbed away by the animal's 

 movements, and partly melted by the warmth of its body, so that 

 little by little a protecting grotto is formed round the hole. In 

 these vaults, which are often situated very many feet beneath the 

 surface of the snow, the seal lives during the winter without ever 

 coming up. 



The polar bear is well aware of these conditions, and I have 

 often seen great holes which have been dug by it in the snow 

 alongside the hummocks in all likelihood where it had smelt 

 a seal and there probably it had lain in wait to get itself a 

 mouthful for Christmas. 



How it was that the little seal had lost its life out on the ice 

 was not easy to say. It had not been molested in any way, and 

 we imagined it must have been from the freezing of the hole ; 

 that it had neither strength enough to break through the ice nor 

 to push its way through the wall of snow to the neighbouring 

 hole. There it had lain and succumbed to the long cold winter 

 night. Then came the spring, the sun broke down the wall of 

 snow between the two openings, and we found the poor thing 

 lying dead by the edge of the open hole. 



We went on south-westwartjs, and thought of pitching our 

 tent in the evening a little east of a big reach of sand. There 

 was an immense quantity of snow lying over everything, and 

 though it was June 17, it was still full winter. We had never 

 before seen the country so evenly covered with snow ; there was 

 hardly a dark spot visible on the land south of us. We had to 

 look long and well before we discovered a sand-ridge on which to 

 pitch the tent. 



Next day, June 18, we drove along the ice-foot to the northern 

 point of the sands, and thought of striking diagonally across the 

 bay to the place where we used to start across country to the 

 ' Fram.' But when we had come to about the middle of the bay, 



