204 OUR ARCTIC PROVINCE. 



determination excessively difficult ; they are as unstable in their 

 visits as are several of the Lepidoptera. The cool humidity of cli- 

 mate during the summer season oh the Pribylov Islands is espe- 

 cially adapted to that mysterious, but beautiful growth of these 

 plants the apotheosis of decay. The coloring of several varieties 

 is very bright and attractive, shading from a purplish-scarlet to a 

 pallid white. 



A great many attempts have been made, both here and at St. 

 George, to raise a few of the hardy vegetables. With the excep- 

 tion of growing lettuce, turnips, and radishes on the Island of St. 

 Paul, nothing has been or can be done. On the south shore of St. 

 George, and at the foot of a mural bluff, is a little patch of ground 

 less in area than one-sixteenth of an acre, which appears to be so 

 drained and so warmed by the rarely-reflected sunlight from this 

 cliff, every ray of which seems to be gathered and radiated from the 

 rocks, as to allow the production of fair turnips ; and at one season 

 there were actually raised potatoes as large as walnuts. Gardening, 

 however, on either island involves so much labor and so much care, 

 with so poor a return, that it has been discontinued. It is a great 

 deal better, and a great deal easier, to have the " truck " come up 

 once a year from San Francisco on the steamer. 



There is one comfort which nature has vouchsafed to civilized 

 man on these islands. There are very few indigenous insects. A 

 large flesh-fly, Bombylius major, appears during the summer and 

 settles in a striking manner on the backs of quiet, loafing natives, 

 or strings itself in rows of millions upon the long grass-blades 

 which flourish about the killing-grounds, especially on the leaf-stalks 

 of an elymus, causing this vegetation, over the whole slaughtering- 

 field and vicinity, to fairly droop to earth as if beaten down by a 

 tornado of wind and rain. It makes the landscape look as though 

 it had moulded over night, and the fungoid spores were blue and 

 gray. Our common house-fly is not present ; I never saw one while 

 I was up there. The flesh-flies which I have just mentioned never 

 came into the dwellings unless by accident : the natives say they do 

 not annoy them, and I did not notice any disturbance among the 

 few animals which the resident company had imported for beef and 

 for service. 



Then, again, this is perhaps the only place in all Alaska where 

 man, primitive and civilized, is not cursed by mosquitoes. There 

 are none here. A gnat, that is disagreeably suggestive of the real 



