1864.] MR. A. NEWTON ON THE ZOOLOGY OF SPITSBERGEN. 499 
at least six or eight of them swimming at very short distances from 
one another, and they glided rapidly through the water with an easy 
and almost graceful roll, now and then emerging from the surface 
sufficiently to show the whole of their bodies. 
It is not my intention now to say much concerning the birds of 
Spitsbergen ; but I must mention that the sound we were entering 
presents one of the most wonderful sights to the eye of the ornitho- 
logist that can possibly be conceived. The species which frequent 
Spitsbergen are few in number, much fewer than had been thought 
prior to the publication of Herr A. J. Malmgren’s admirably critical 
papers*; but the number of individuals is past all computation. It 
will be sufficient here to name the species I observed at this time, 
and this I shall do somewhat in the order of their comparative abun- 
dance. First Mergulus alle, Uria arra, and Cepphus grylle; then 
Rissa tridactyla, Somateria mollissima, Procellaria glacialis, Frater- 
cula glacialis, Larus glaucus, and, lastly, an Anser which I shall 
specify hereafter. All these, excepting Larus glaucus, we found 
breeding around Ice Sound, indeed, I may say, in the immediate 
neighbourhood of Safe Haven, a commodious inlet on its northern 
shore, where the yacht dropped her anchor on the morning of the 
9th July. 
The whole of the next week was employed by our party in explor- 
ing, with different objects in view, the shores of the sound, or, as it 
should be more properly called, fjord, for it extends at least fifty 
miles into the interior, and appears to have no connexion with Wi- 
belan’s Water or any other inlet of importance. Almost every de- 
pression on its northern side is occupied by a glacier, which generally 
fills it nearly to the brim, and, with but one exception, these glaciers 
are only terminated by the sea; but along its southern shore are 
some four or five bays of various sizes, and between them various 
valleys which, being quite free from ice, are more or less fertile 
and afford sufficient pasturage for numerous herds of Rangifer ta- 
randus. These Deer are tolerably abundant: they are certainly 
smaller than the Lapland Reins, whether wild or tame; and though 
I can hardly profess to speak generally on the subject, yet all the 
antlers which I saw in Spitsbergen seemed to me to be slighter in 
the beam than those of the continental race ; nevertheless, the points 
being in old stags considerably elongated, the expanse of antler was 
not much inferior. The average type of a good Spitsbergen head is 
very well represented by the first figure in the ‘ Fauna Boreali-Ame- 
vicana’ (vol. i. p. 240), of the so-called Barren-ground Caribou 
(Cervus tarandus, var. a. arctica, Richardson) ; and it is probable 
that the same causes which influence the development of the antlers 
in the Rein-Deer of the mauvaises terres in North America affect 
in like manner those of their Spitsbergen brethren. These last are 
said, by persons who have wintered there, not to migrate from the 
country ; at least they or their tracks on the snow are seen ‘‘as soon 
as it begins to get light” in spring. At the same time it is just 
possible that some of them may wander over the frozen sea by way 
* Ofversigt af Kongl. Vetenskaps-Akademiens Forhandlingar, 11 Febr. 1863. 
