NOTES FROM AN ARCTIC JOURNAL. 101 
Knots rose in front of me, both of which I killed. They were 
male and female, in rich breeding plumage; their stomachs were 
full of the buds of Saxifraga oppositijolia, the plant around 
which I had seen them circling. Later on in the day I observed 
other parties of Knots, and with them a few Turnstones and 
Sanderlings. 
On the 6th, as we journeyed along, a Buffon’s Skua, 
evidently hunting for Lemmings, passed near enough to the 
sledge to be recognizable. That day a single open blossom of 
Saxifraga oppositifolia was found; it is needless to remark how 
much it gladdened our eyes. ‘The transient summer of the 
Polar zone was near at hand. As we passed along through the 
softening snow, Knots and Turnstones were to be heard calling 
around us, and insect life, in the shape of flies and midges, was 
once again awakened. A Seal, Phoca hispida, was seen lying on 
the ice of Dumbell Bay as we passed by. On the evening of the 
7th June, the party with which I had been travelling returned to 
the ship. 
On the following day Lieut. Parr arrived with the news of 
the utter prostration of Markham’s party from scurvy. They 
had been fortunate enough to reach the land and get some 
supplies at the depot near Cape Joseph Henry, and were then 
toiling slowly and sadly homeward. In less than three hours 
after Parr’s arrival, the dog-sledge with Dr. Moss and Mr. May 
had started to the succour of Markham’s party: an hour later 
a couple of sledges, with Captain Nares and every available 
officer and man in the drag ropes, proceeded on the same 
service. Early in the morning of the 14th Markham and his 
party were safe on board the vessel. On the 9th four Brent Geese 
were shot, and on the 12th several pairs were flying along the 
coast-line, apparently in search of bare places to alight on where 
a sprinkling of vegetation was to be found. Such spots were 
still few and far between.* On the 16th I observed three Arctic 
Terns, Sterna macrura, in the neighbourhood of winter- quarters. 
The insurmountable obstacles encountered by Markham 
during his journey over the Polar ice, having fully demonstrated 
* No flocks of Brent Geese, or indeed a single individual of this species, or any of 
the Anatide, were seen winging their way due north over the Frozen Sea, which 
would have been the case did migration extend in that direction. In every instance 
they clung to the coast-line. 
