2i8 ANIMALS AT WORK AND PLA Y 



land creatures, all of whom might, if they chose, 

 migrate reindeer, musk-sheep, polar-bears, blue foxes, 

 and lemmings prefer to stay, and abide for six months 

 in this circumpolar 'city of dreadful night.' The 

 nature of this polar night, of the cold it brings and 

 its effect on animals, may be gathered from Colonel 

 Feilden's notes made during the winter passed by 

 H.M.S. 'Alert* on Grinnell Land in 1875-76, at a 

 point nearer the actual Pole than has been reached 

 before or since. The sun sank on October i2th, 

 and did not reappear till March 2d a night of only 

 twenty-nine days less than its calculated disappearance 

 at the actual Pole. Yet it is certain that this pro- 

 tracted night was never dark in the sense that it 

 is dark inside the galleries of a coal-pit. The Arctic 

 animals, unlike the deep-sea creatures, need to develop 

 no light-organs to illuminate their path, though they 

 live only in ' darkness visible.' ' On November 3Oth,' 

 writes Colonel Feilden, ' with a perfectly clear sky, 

 from a distance of half-a-mile in a southerly direction, 

 the ship was visible from eleven A.M to one P.M. 

 At noon, just topping the eastern hills, was a faintly- 

 tinted, pearly-green sky, through which stars of the 

 first magnitude had a difficulty in shining. On 

 January 24th, the twilight at noon had increased 

 sufficiently to enable us to distinguish a comrade 

 at a distance of one hundred and twenty yards. 



