222 ADVENTURES IN THE NORTHERN SEAS. 



fords any vegetation, a troop of from three to twenty 

 is generally to be met with. They do not grow to 

 such a large size a? the tame reindeer of Lapland, 

 nor are their horns quite so fine ; but they attain 

 to a most extraordinary degree of condition. This 

 seems to be a sort of provision of nature to enable 

 these animals to exist through the long Polar win- 

 ter, 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 ex- 

 traordinary ; and as scarcely any grass exists even 

 in the most favored parts of Spitzbergen, this must 

 be chiefly attributable to some excessively nutri- 

 tious 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 im- 

 proving 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 parts, and at least three inches thick 

 over the haunches and on the brisket. We had no 



