496 MR.A. NEWTON ON THE ZOOLOGY OF SPITSBERGEN. [Nov. 8, 
of Giles Land—and other islands, perhaps, of which we have as 
yet no knowledge—to Nova Zembla, and so on to the country of the 
Samoides. Certainly a hind killed by my friend Mr. Graham Man- 
ners-Sutton had one ear slit in a manner which was recognized by 
some of the ‘Semmoline’s’ crew (most of them Queens) as a mark 
of ownership. I must, however, add that, averse as I am to doubt 
the technical knowledge of an expert, the slit in question seemed to 
me as if it might have been very well caused by another Deer in fight- 
ing, or, even if it were of human origin, such as might have been 
made by some one who had caught the animal when a calf, and let it 
go again; but this last solution of the difficulty excited a laugh at 
my simplicity among the Quzens, who could not conceive it possible 
that a hungry hunter should show compassion towards the very 
youngest deer. All that we saw the first week of our being in the 
country still retained a considerable quantity of their nearly white 
winter clothing, thus rendering their detection, when viewed against 
the dark-coloured ground, a very easy matter even at a great distance. 
These animals also were in poor condition, contrasting in this respect 
strongly with those killed about a month later, when their bodies on 
being flayed were found to be covered with fat nearly two inches thick. 
At this time they had entirely got rid of their overcoats, and were 
clothed entirely in a short but close felt of dark mouse-colour. 
Judging from the gralloch, in the summer, lichens seem to form 
only a small article in their diet, their food then consisting chiefly 
of mosses, grasses, and any other herbage. 
The Arctic Fox (Canis lagopus) is pretty numerous along the 
shores of Ice Sound; and we not only frequently saw examples of 
it, but in the immediate neighbourhood of the cliffs wherein the 
Alcide were nesting one could, by listening almost at any time in the 
twenty-four hours, hear its yapping bark. It is of course the chief 
enemy of all the different kinds of birds, and their dread of it appears 
to influence them greatly in their choice of breeding-quarters. What 
the Foxes do to get a living in winter when the birds have left the 
country—for I imagine that the Ptarmigan (Lagopus hemileucurus) 
is the only species that is permanently resident—is one of the most 
curious questions that has presented itself to my mind for some time. 
The greater number of them are said to remain on the land, and to 
be as active during the long polar night as they are in summer ; yet 
there are no berries by which they might eke out their existence, 
and there can be no open water, on the margin of which they might 
find food, within miles of their haunts. The most natural explana- 
tion that occurs to one is that they lay up a stock of provisions ; but 
nobody, that I am aware of, has ever found such a store-closet*, or 
has observed any tendency to hoarding in their habits. In Spits- 
bergen I believe that none of the varieties known as the Blue, the 
Black, or the Silver Fox have been noticed. The summer pelt does 
* Since the above was written, it has occurred to me that a considerable col- 
lection of shells of Mya truncata, which I found one day on the moraine of a 
glacier in Safe Haven, may possibly have been due to the causes suggested in the 
text. 
