52 THE ZOOLOGIST. 
I have reproduced this circumstantial account from my journal 
because it was written down within a few minutes of the occurrence 
of the event, and because I was requested to make careful obser- 
vations on this disease if we were so unfortunate as to meet with 
it. Otherwise under similar circumstances— namely, a pitch- 
dark day on a Polar floe, with an apparently rabid dog careering 
round—one might be tempted to kill the animal, which would 
have been a great mistake, for Bruin recovered, and next year 
took his place in the dog-team. 
“Nov. 12th.— Only three of the Homing Pigeons brought from 
England are now alive, and these have been placed on the upper- 
deck, which is housed over with a felt awning; day and night 
lighted lamps are suspended in this part of the ship, so that, 
except for the extreme cold, it is the most cheerful spot we can 
find for these birds. A temperature of fifty to sixty degrees 
below the freezing-point does not appear to incommode them, 
for two of them are mating and seem quite happy, billing and 
cooing. 
16th.—When I drew up the baited net from the fire-hole, it 
contained, along with other crustaceans, a dozen specimens of 
Arcturus bafini; the largest of these had the antenn covered 
with young ones; there was also an annelid: all of these creatures 
died instantaneously when exposed to the air, the temperature of 
which at the time was —30° F. The difficulty of working with 
ungloved fingers in such a temperature is insuperable; frost-bite 
can only be kept off by thrusting the hands continually into the 
sea-water. 
24th.—The two mated pigeons disappeared to-day, and the 
third was killed and hung up in the rigging to prevent its loss. 
30th.—A small phosphorescent pleurobranch came up in the 
water from the fire-hole, the temperature of which was 28°2° F. 
December 3rd.—There has been an extraordinary rise in the 
temperature to-day, coincident with a strong S.E. wind blowing 
up Robeson Channel: the maximum registered was + 385° F. At 
5.30 p.mM., on a hummock elevated eighteen feet above the floe, 
the temperature registered + 28°2° F., but during lulls of the 
wind it fell a degree; a foot from the surface of the hummock it 
registered + 26° F., on the hummock itself + 19° F.; a thermo- 
meter buried in a hole made with an augur two inches in the 
