314 THE ZOOLOGIST. 
condensed account of the salient features of the Natural-History 
Collections of the Expedition is recorded. 
A mere enumeration of species procured, though valuable in 
a scientific point of view as affording a basis for the study of 
distribution, fails to convey to the reader any idea of the natural 
features of the country. In the following notes, therefore, the 
writer’s endeavour has been not to weary the reader with a 
recapitulation of scientific names, but to bring to his mind’s eye 
some slight idea of the physical aspect of the Polar zone; the 
paucity, yet interest, of its alpine Hora; the extraordinary manner 
in which mammalian life is supported on a land apparently so 
barren that a casual observer would pronounce it absolutely 
desert; to draw some attention to the amount of invertebrate life 
in a sea just above the freezing-point; and to consider those 
startling changes which must have occurred in the history of our 
planet to have converted a sea, once crowded with reef-forming 
corals, to one on which now floats a perennial ice-cap. 
The appointment of two gentlemen to accompany the Arctic 
Expedition of 1875-76 as naturalists, was based upon a recom- 
mendation of the President and Council of the Royal Society, 
which received the approval of the Lords Commissioners of Her 
Majesty’s Treasury. Although these appointments interfered with 
the personnel of the Expedition as first decided on, yet the Lords 
Commissioners of the Admiralty, with the greatest liberality, 
modified the previous arrangement, and made provision for the 
reception on board of H.M. ships ‘ Alert’ and ‘ Discovery’ of two 
gentlemen to serve as naturalists, with the same pay, clothing, and 
emoluments as the lieutenants of the Expedition. In the first 
instance, the appointment of surgeon and naturalist to both vessels 
had been combined in persons eminently qualified for both duties, 
and it is not unnatural to suppose that it must have been a source 
of considerable disappointment to those gentlemen to find that the 
official means of carrying out their favourite studies as naturalists 
were transferred to others, not members of the naval profession. 
I have therefore the greater pleasure in recording how indebted 
1 am to Dr. Edward L. Moss, surgeon of the ‘ Alert,’ and Dr. 
Richard Coppinger, surgeon of the ‘ Discovery,’ for their valuable 
and generous assistance during the voyage, and the liberal manner 
in which their collections were placed at my disposal on the return 
of the Expedition. 
a 
