GREENLAND BY THE POLAR SEA 



quenting the lanes along the coast. As Knud Rasmussen has told us, they 

 were eagerly hunted by the expedition, as a rule, unfortunately, without 

 success, as the shot animals sank down into the fresh water ; the freshness of 

 the water is due partly to the afflux of water from land, partly to the 

 melting ice. 



Their food consisted of sea-scorpions, halibuts, Polar cod, and various 

 animals from the bottom of the sea. 



On the north coast of Greenland, contrary to other Arctic regions, bird- 

 cliffs seemed to be entirely lacking. Consequently none of the various auks 

 were observed, and the fulmar, which also breeds on the bird-cliffs, was seen 

 only once ; the three-toed gull was not seen at all. 



Of lower animals the insects are specially noticeable. Wulff has many 

 notes about them. Flies and gnats were most numerous, but as we have 

 already mentioned under the fertilization of flowers, humblebees and butter- 

 flies were also found. Unfortunately, one knows very little about the winter- 

 ing of these insects ; some of them evidently winter as fully grown insects, 

 others as pupae and larvae, and others probably as eggs. It is remarkable that 

 a fully grown insect or a larva is able to resist the long and terribly cold winter. 

 On the 30th of May — the first day of a positive temperature by noon — 

 Wulff for the first time saw gnats ; evidently they had hibernated through the 

 winter, and then been revived by the warm rays of the spring sun. 



Half a score of days later (9th of June) he observed big flies playing and 

 mating on the canvas of the tent. They had probably wintered as pupae. 

 Their eggs were subsequently found (25th of June) in great numbers on the 

 musk-ox skins. 



A large, woolly, yellowish-brown larva of a butterfly was observed by Wulff 

 walking in the snow between the twigs of the Arctic willow as early as the 

 3rd of June, and again on the 9th of June. He then wrote in his diary : 

 " Does it winter as a larva? I am sure it does, for there is nothing for it to 

 eat; also, it is already full-grown." 



A month later (13th of July) fully developed butterflies are seen on the 

 flowers — reddish-brown mother-of-pearl butterflies. Somewhat earlier (22nd of 

 June) the humblebees appeared. 



Spiders and earth-mites also support life in these high latitudes ; and we 

 must not forget that even here the larger animals are not free of parasites : lice 

 and intestinal worms worry the mammals, and the birds have their louse-flies. 



Thus quite a series of animals exist even under the harsh and poor condi- 

 tions of the Polar countries. Their organization and mode of life are each 

 in their own way adapted to their surroundings. Birds and mammals have 

 their animal heat and their thick cover of feathers or hairs wherewith to resist 

 the cold ; most of the birds, however, migrate to the south during the coldest 

 period. 



Most of the mammals and those of the birds which, like the ptarmigan 

 and the snowy owl, remain in the Arctic regions, are white in winter or all 

 the year round, evidently a protective likeness to the surrounding snow-fields. 



The lower animals would appear to be adapted to the Arctic conditions to a 

 far smaller degree ; they are unable to withdraw during the unfavourable 

 period as do the migratory birds, and they remain hibernating through the 

 winter. Their power of resistance must be due to internal causes. Im- 

 movable and frozen rigid, they await their waking up to a brief aerial life in 

 the light Arctic summer. 

 300 



