202 APPENDIX. No. II. 



to the stew-pans, was rank and objectionable, whilst the flesh 

 of some adult animals of both sexes of which I have partaken, 

 was dark, tender and well-flavoured. Richardson states that 

 the food of the musk-ox is at one season of the year grass, 

 at another lichen. Only leaves and stems of willow, with 

 grasses, were in the stomachs I examined. This animal is 

 infested with two species of worms, a Tcenia and a Filar ta. 



GL1RES. 



12. MYODES TORQUATUS (Pall.) The ringed lemming 

 was found in great abundance along the western shores of 

 Smith Sound, and was traced by our explorers to lat. 83 N., 

 and to the extreme western point attained. On the Green- 

 land shore it was found by members of our Expedition at 

 Thank God Harbour, where it had previously been obtained 

 by Dr. Bessels, 1 and traces of it were noticed by our sledge 

 parties who travelled along the northern shores of Greenland. 

 There can be no doubt that the eastern migration of this 

 animal has been across Robeson Channel and around the north 

 coast of Greenland to Scoresby Sound on the east coast, from 

 which locality this animal was brought by Captain Scoresby 

 in 1822. Apparently its southern range on the west coast of 

 Greenland is stopped by the great Humboldt Glacier. This 

 lemming is a great wanderer ; we found it on the floes of 

 Robeson Channel at considerable distances from land, some- 

 times in a very exhausted state, but generally dead. Its 

 habit of leaving the shore and wandering over the ice fully 

 accounts for the skeleton of one of this species being found on 

 a floe in lat. 81 45' N., sixty miles from Spitsbergen, by Sir 

 J. C. Ross during Parry's memorable attempt to reach the 

 North Pole in 1827. 2 We are indebted to Dr. von Midden- 

 dorff for an excellent account of the anatomy and external 



1 ' Bulletin de la Societe de Geographie/ 1875, p. 296. 



2 ' Narr. Attempt to reach North Pole ' (Parry), p. 190. 



