108 The Zoologist— May, 1866. 



that can possibly be conceived. The species which frequent Spits- 

 bergen are few in number, much fevver than had been thought prior to 

 the publication of Herr A. J. Malragren's admirably critical papers;* 

 but the number of individuals is past all computation. It will be 

 sufficient here to name the species 1 observed at this time, and this I 

 shall do somewhat in the order of their comparative abundance. First 

 Mergulus alle, Uria arra, and Cepphus grylle ; t then Rissa iridactyla, 

 Soraateria nioUissima, Procellaria glacialis, Fratercula glacialis, Larns 

 glaucus, and, lastly, an Anser which I shall specify hereafter. All 

 these, excepting Larus glaucus, we found breeding around Ice Sound; 

 indeed, I may say, in the immediate neighbourhood of Safe Haven, a 

 commodious inlet on its northern shore, where the yacht dropped her 

 anchor on the morning of the 9th Jul}'. 



The whole of the next week was employed by our party in 

 exploring, with different objects in view, the shores of the sound, or, as 

 it should be more properly called, fjord, for it extends at least fifty 

 miles into the interior, and a})pears to have no connection with 

 Wibelan's Water or any other inlet of iuiportance. Almost every 

 depression on its northern side is occupied by a glacier, which 

 generally fills it nearly to the briiji, and, with but one exception, these 

 glaciers are only terminated by the sea; but along its sutheni shore 

 are some four or five bays of various sizes, and between them various 

 valleys which, being quite free from ice, are more or less fertile and 

 afford sufficient pasturage for numerous herds of Rangifer larandus. 

 These deer are tolerably abundant: they are certainly smaller than the 

 Lapland reins, whether wild or tame ; and though I can hardly profess 

 to speak generally on the subject, yet all the antlers which I saw in 

 Spitsbergen seemed to me to be slighter in the beam than those of the 

 continental race ; nevertheless, the points being in old stags couvsider- 

 ably elongated, the expanse of antler was not much inferior. The 

 average type of a good Spitsbergen head is very well repres^ted by 

 the first figure in the 'Fauna Boreali-Americana ' (vol^i. p. 240), of 

 the so-called barren-ground caribou [Ceriiis tarundus, var. a. arclicn, 

 Richardson); and it is probable that the same causes which influence 



* Ofversigt af Kongl. Veieiiskaps-Akrtdeiniens Foiliandlingar, 11 Febr. 1S63. 



f P.S. August 23, 1865. jMore rect'iit invesiigaiioiis have led inc to believe that 

 the Uria uiandii of Lichtensleii) is specifically di^lillct from the Colvmlnis grylle «f 

 Liniiffius. I never met wiih the latter in Spitsbergen, all the specimens of black 

 guillemots which I have seen in and from that country being referable to the 

 former. 



