The Zoologist — November, 1873. 3763 



of the smaller dredge, no pulley being employed iu hauling it up, 

 these dredges were voted too heavy, and recourse was had to a 

 large-meshed oyster-dredge and a swab. It will be seen that 

 we did get a few of the peculiarly arctic shells, even with this 

 apparatus. 



We left Dundee on the 10th of May, and re-entered the docks 

 on the morning of the 27th of September. As a moderately 

 accurate account of our voyage is given in 'The Times' of the 

 29th September, I shall not here reiterate our course, but shall 

 merely note a few incidents connected with it which do not relate 

 to Spitsbergen, and therefore cannot be touched upon in the 

 systematic portion of this paper. 



On the 25lh of May, when we were about lat. 74° 12' N., long. 

 1° 45' VV., a flight of snow buntings passed us flying westwards, 

 the surface wind being N.E. Not far from the same neighbourhood, 

 in lat. 74° 28' N., long. 2° 8' W., I procured some pieces of decayed 

 ice discoloured by diatoms : these plants grew on the surface of 

 the ice-crystals in the interstices of the honeycombed part, and 

 there formed a coloured layer between the newer snow and the 

 hard ice from four inches to two feet in depth. A piece of clearer 

 ice contained one or two fragments of comminuted pine-bark about 

 a sixteenth of an inch in length, and a bird-louse, which aff'orded 

 much amusement to the sailors when viewed through a Coddington 

 lens. I also picked up a short piece of Fucus vesiculosus, in 

 very fair condition. The day after (27th May) a male redpoll 

 alighted on the ship when we were in lat. 75° 13' N., 2° 30' W. 

 It was seen by several of the crew, but while attempts were being 

 made to secure it, resuming its course it flew far away out of 

 sight. Three flights of snow buntings, eleven birds in all, flew 

 past us westward the next day. On 29lh May we saw the first 

 narwhal, in lat. 76° 39' N. I had obtained from the master, Capt. 

 Fairweather, a few days before, the following account of the occur- 

 rence of a female narwhal, with a tusk nine feet and a half long, 

 which had come under his own observation. He described the 

 circumstances of its capture nearly in the following words: — "In 

 June month, 1863, a unicorn was struck in Melville's Bay, by the 

 ' Wildfire,' commanded by Captain Walker. The harpoon drew 

 and they lost the fish ; but it was afterwards picked up dead by the 

 'Day,' of which I was mate. When they were flensing it my 

 attention was attracted by something unusual in its appearance, so 



