3770 The Zoologist — November, 1873. 



s^eah" {Phoca barbata), soraelimes correctly; soraetimes the sub- 

 ject all the while would really be a young " ringed seal" {Pagoinys 

 foetidus). When the young of this last kind was prettily marked 

 with ringed spots, none of them questioned its identity with the 

 "freshwater seal" of the Straits — a northern fur seal, with whose 

 mere skin 1 am acquainted. The term " Dorothy seal" was equally 

 vague in its application. It was only in the determination of adult 

 seals that the men were usually correct. Besides this I need only 

 remark that the stomach of a ground seal killed in lat. 79° 40' N., 

 long. 5° E., contained a frond of Laminaria saccharina bitten into 

 little bits; and that Lieut. Chermside found on the south side of 

 MofTen Island a large number of krangs of walrus which had been 

 killed at a distance of more than one hundred yards from the sea. 

 Capt. Walker got me some ticks {H<Bmatopinus Tricliechi) from a 

 walrus he killed in Lomme Bay. On Sunday, 18lh June, 1871, our 

 fireman, Nicholas White, then of the ' Polynia,' saw a walrus catch 

 a loom in Lancaster Sound : the bird was swimming, and the sea- 

 horse seized it from below. 



Rangifer tarandus. — Traces of reindeer can be found all round 

 Spitsbergen wherever the ground is free from snow, and on most 

 of the islands. Judging from cast antlers, we were led to think it 

 not unlikely that the comparative robustness or slightness of the 

 beam may be dependent on the nature of the soil prevailing in the 

 district over which a deer is accustomed to range ; for we noticed 

 that where limestone was predominant the antlers we picked up 

 were far stouter and more heavy than any we could find in places 

 where hyperite, granite or other durable rock formed the basis of 

 the soil. The reindeer's favourite food in Spitsbergen appears to 

 be the dwarf willow {Salix polaris) ; for out of over sixty shot in 

 Wiide Bay, only one or two had been feeding upon anything else. 

 They seem to be indifferent to the sight of men standing still or 

 lying down. A fawn one day, after it had looked at me, passed 

 within two paces of me as I lay upon the ground, without being 

 frightened ; but they generally trot off if they see you move. 

 Some, however, were so tame that they continued to graze whilst 

 I was climbing about a cliff within a hundred yards of them, and 

 the stones dislodged by my feet bounded past them. They saw 

 me, but I did not disturb them in the least. Mr. Smith and Capt. 

 Fairweather shot a doe and fawn on Phipps's Island the day before 

 we left the Seven Islands the last time. They came upon them 



