482 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



I only shot one calf, which, in the momentary glimpse as it was 

 making away, I mistook for a sizeable animal. Cast antlers, besides 

 living deer, were very numerous at Sassen Bay, while at Cape 

 Thordsen, only a few miles distant, we found numerous cast-horns, 

 but live deer — according to Lieut. Stjernspetz, of the Swedish 

 Meteorological Expedition — were entirely absent. I have tried 

 to ascertain some constant point of difference between horns from 

 this country and Scandinavia, but can only say tbat the horns, like 

 the animals that bear them, never attain the size in Spitzbergen 

 that they do in Scandinavia, and a series of horns from Spitz- 

 bergen show rather a longer interval between the brow and next 

 tine, and a greater bend backwards at the point whence the latter 

 tine starts ; but these points are only perceptible in a series, and 

 are worth nothing in determining the locality of a single specimen. 

 One doe obtained by us had only one horn ; another had the horns, 

 as it were, placed the wrong way forwards, the convex side being 

 to the front, and the only tine on each projecting from the back 

 of the horn. I suppose that the apparent beam is really the 

 brow-tine, and the apparent tine is really the beam. 



The following were the species of birds obtained by us in 

 Spitzbergen in 1882 : — 



Ptarmigan, Lagopus hcmileucurus, Gould ; Norwegian, " Rype."* 

 — When we visited the Swedish Meteorological Expedition at Cape 

 Thordsen, we found that Lieut. Stjernspetz had shot about eleven 

 on September 10th, of which he most kindly gave us four, and on 

 our calling in at Cape Thordsen again we found that he had seen 

 four more on September 18th, and had bagged them all. They 

 are far larger in the body than the common European Ptarmigan, 

 and having in the autumn a layer of fat fully a sixteenth of an 

 inch thick over the whole body, presented a bonne louche almost 

 worth an alderman's while to go all the way to taste. At Sassen 

 Bay, on September 14th, we found a covey of ten Ptarmigan, and 

 secured five, and later in the day a single bird ; plenty of then- 

 tracks were seen subsequently in the snow, but no birds. The 

 specimens which I brought home this last season (killed in 



* The European Ptarmigan are distinguished from the Willow Grouse 

 byheing called "Fjeld-Rype" (in Gudbrandsdalen "Fjeld-Skarv"), but there 

 being only one species in Spitzbergen they are simply called " Rype." 



