NOTES FROM AN ARCTIC JOURNAL. 377 
all the eiders shot on this trip belonged to this species. They 
usually flew in flocks, in a course parallel with ‘the coast. The 
six or eight examples we procured were males. I observed one 
flock containing more than fifty individuals; the bright-coloured 
males predominated, and the remainder were in all probability 
immature birds of the same sex. Mr. Fencker assured me that 
none of this species nested in the vicinity of Godhavn, some small 
islands in Disco Fiord being the nearest breeding place with which 
he was acquainted. ‘The natives do not discriminate between the 
females of the two species of Eider Ducks, consequently well- 
authenticated eggs of the King Eider are difficult to procure from 
Greenland. On a small lake, not far from Godhavn, a few Red- 
necked Phalaropes were breeding. This list about exhausts the 
number of species of birds that 1 observed at the island of Disco. 
Englishman’s Bay, just beyond the harbour of Godhavn, is an 
excellent locality for the plant-collector. We visited that spot on 
several occasions: a bed of Mertensia maritima in full bloom, 
growing on the beach, was very attractive ; Archangelica officinalis 
grew there abundantly ; at the roots of a fern a small snail, Vitrina 
angelica var. pellucida, was rather common. The only drawbacks 
to our enjoyment on shore were the attacks of mosquitoes, large 
striped ivsects, which alighted on one without any humming or 
note of warning. 
At Godhavn we obtained some twenty-four dogs for sledging 
purposes. The dog of the Eskimos is undoubtedly a semi- 
domesticated wolf;* and in all probability accompanied that 
people from America in their migration to Greenland. In the 
Danish settlements some of these animals show traces of having 
been crossed with Newfoundland or Labrador dogs; but the 
genuine wolf-type largely predominates. As I was destined in the 
future to become better acquainted with these valuable assistants, 
when toiling along with them over the rugged floes of the far 
north, | shall defer giving an account of them until a later period 
of the voyage. 
On July 15th we left Godhavn, and proceeded to the settlement 
of Ritenbenk, likewise the name of the district which occupies 
_ both sides of the Waigatt Strait. The setthement of Ritenbenk 
contains a population of about one hundred souls. On our passage 
* Dr. Robert Brown considers the progenitor of the Arctic Dog to have been 
Canis occidentalis var. griseo-alba (Proc. Zool. Soc., May, 1868). 
36 
