Arctic Flora. 195 



the same abundance of animal life is to be found 

 there also. The birds all disappeared during the 

 winter, though ptarmigan and a species of snipe 

 made their appearance early in the. spring; and in 

 the summer all the genera found in other parts of 

 the Arctic regions were abundant. With the ex- 

 ception of a salmon seen in a fresh- water lake not 

 far from the beach, no fish were met with. The 

 contents of the stomachs of the seals they caught 

 were found to consist of shrimps and other small 

 shell fish. Dr. Bessels used the dredge on several 

 occasions, but owing to the ice, he could seldom do 

 so at a greater depth than eighteen or twenty 

 fathoms, the results being generally unimportant, 

 and with the exception of a few shrimps and other 

 Crustacea, nothing of interest was obtained. No 

 less than fifteen species of plants, five of which were 

 grasses, were collected by the doctor at their high- 

 est latitude, on which the musk oxen must subsist. 

 He gave me four specimens of the flora of 82° N., 

 the names of which will be found in the list of 

 plants in the Appendix, to which Dr. Hooker has 

 kindly added an explanatory note. Mr. Chester 

 presented me with a fossil from the Silurian lime- 

 stone of that high latitude, which is also referred to 

 in the Appendix. Dr. Bessels made a fair collec- 

 tion of insects, principally flies and beetles, two or 

 three butterflies and mosquitos ; and birds of seven- 

 teen different kinds were shot in 82°, including two 

 sabine gulls and an Iceland snipe. 



