406 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



identifications, which are merely guess-work. After we had 

 arrived in Spitzbergen waters, with the exception of various bones 

 partly overgrown with moss, on one of the Axel Islands at the 

 entrance to Van Mijen's Bay, which had evidently been lying 

 there for a considerable number of years, and which were possibly 

 those of Balcena mysticetus, a species we did not observe alive, 

 but which, as is well known, was formerly very plentiful in those 

 waters, the only cetacean I have any note of is— - 



The White Whale (Beluga catodon, Newton, P. Z. S., 1864 ; 

 Delphinapterus leucas, Pallas. — Decidedly common round the 

 west coast of Spitzbergen. They appear to keep, as a rule, close 

 to the shore, and especially to frequent the heads of fjords, or 

 other places where fresh water is discharged into the sea (as from 

 glaciers or rivers). They are very quick, active animals, their 

 movements being more fish-like than those of such other cetaceans 

 as I have seen, which all have a more dignified or measured way 

 of moving than the Beluga, which even applies to the small 

 Porpoise, a species, by the way, which Professor Newton (" Notes 

 on the Zoology of Spitzbergen," P. Z. S., 1864) is confident he saw 

 " more than once," but which I have no recollection of seeing up 

 in the far-north ; but it is just possible that amid the greater 

 rarities, or at least novelties, I may have omitted to notice it. 

 Some idea of the numbers of the White Whale on the Spitzbergen 

 coast may be gathered from the fact of a schooner, to which we 

 paid a visit in Magdalena Bay, having on board (we were told) 

 250 skins, the produce of a little over two months' " fishing." 



Reindeer (Rangifer tarandus, L.). — The fleet of sloops, 

 schooners, &c, which arrive at Spitzbergen every spring from 

 Hammerfest, Tromso, and other parts of Norway in pursuit of 

 White Whales, Walrus, and other " game," send a large contingent 

 of hunters ashore after Reindeer, so that by the time we reached 

 the country (towards the end of July) we found the deer driven 

 away from the coast, and only to be met with in small numbers a 

 long way inland. The Reindeer of Spitzbergen, judging by my 

 extremely limited experience, are decidedly smaller than in Nor- 

 way. The form of their horns in Norway is so extremely variable 

 that I am not able to detect any difference in type between those 

 from that country and those from Spitzbergen. The horns of all 

 the animals killed by our party were still in the velvet, but we 

 picked up several cast antlers, especially at Green Harbour. So 



