4740 THE ZooLocist—JANUARY, 1876. 
lichen, grayish-green grasses, ranunculus, saxifrage, &c., form 
meagre solitary patches amongst the weather-beaten stone heaps. 
Here and there the plains are covered with birch-bushes, a few 
inches high (the stems of which are often no thicker than a lucifer- 
match), also with bilberry-bushes, but more often with sallows, 
creeping along the ground. Almost every species of the Flora of 
the plain, especially the garden poppy, did we find on mountains 
from 1625 to 3250 feet high. On the summit of a rock 7495 feet 
high grew—near the well-known black and yellow lichen, known 
everywhere in the European Alps as the last representative of 
vegetation—a long fibrous kind of moss. The greater summer 
warmth of the rocky interior of the country insures there a more 
varied flora. Former Esquimaux settlements, if only covering a 
few square fathoms, were at once recognisable from their light 
green colour, caused by constant manuring. Meadows, in our 
sense of the term, were nowhere to be seen. 
How far north the musk-ox and the reindeer are found we can 
scarcely decide; the first we met with in 77° N. lat., and the Jast 
only in 75°. The scanty means of existence afforded by the soil 
compel them to constant wanderings. Both animals are almost 
always met with in herds, sometimes of from twenty to thirty head. 
The greatest number of reindeer we ever saw were between one 
hundred and two hundred head, on a hilly ground to the west of 
Cape Broer Ruys; and the greatest number of musk-oxen in the 
brown-coal district of Kuhn Island. To the former we gave battle. 
Their behaviour towards the hunter is in no way similar: the rein- 
deer approaches him at a brisk trot, full of curiosity, to within a 
few steps—indeed, sometimes they come quite close to him; the 
musk-ox remains, as if rooted to the spot, staring at the strange, 
unknown enemy, and arrives very slowly at a resolution. At Cape 
Philip-Broke four of them most humbly condescended to play with 
Payer by pretending to carry off his portable table. Older animals 
stand fire most coolly, even after being wounded, and defend the 
most exposed part by putting down their heads, which is their 
invulnerable part. One of them once received a shot from a 
Wanzl-gun on his mailed forehead without showing the slightest 
annoyance—the ball fell a flattened disk on to the ground. Ifa 
family or a herd of young ones are surprised they either form a 
square (the-young being in the centre, and the old outside with 
their heads down), or else the bull, placed as a sentinel, takes to 
