318 MR. R. BROWN ON THE MAMMALS OF GREENLAND. [May 28, 



extinct, more certainly even than must the " Plain " Indian when 

 the last buffalo is shot. It is impossible for him to drag home the 

 seals, sharks, white whales, or Narwhals which he may have shot in 

 the winter at the " strom-holes " in the ice without his dogs — or 

 for the wild native in the Far North to make his long migrations, 

 with his family and household goods, from one hunting-ground to 

 another without these domestic animals of his. Yet that sad event 

 seems to be not far distant. About fifteen years ago, a curious 

 disease, the nature of which has puzzled veterinarians, appeared among 

 the Arctic dogs, from high up in Smith's Sound down the whole coast 

 of Greenland to Jakobshavu (69° 13' N. lat.), where the ice-fjord 

 stops it from going further south ; and the government uses every 

 endeavour to stop its spread beyond that barrier, by preventing 

 the native dogs north and south from commingling. Kane and 

 Hayes lost most of their dogs through this disease ; and at every 

 settlement in Danish Greenland the natives are impoverished through 

 the death of their teams. It is noticed that whenever a native loses 

 his dogs he goes very rapidly downhill in the sliding scale of Arctic 

 respectability, becoming a sort of hanger-on of the fortunate pos- 

 sessor of a sledge-team. 



During the latter portion of our stay in Jakobshavn, scarcely a day 

 elapsed during which some of the dogs were not ordered to be killed, 

 on account of their having caught this fatal epidemic. 



The Dog is seized with madness, bites at all other dogs, and even 

 at human beings. It is soon unable to swallow its food, and consti- 

 pation ensues. It howls loudly during the continuance of the dis- 

 ease, but generally dies in the course of a day, with its teeth firmly 

 transfixing its tongue. It has thus something of the nature of 

 hydrophobia, but differs from that disease in not being communi- 

 cable by bite, though otherwise contagious among dogs. The go- 

 vernment sent out a veterinary surgeon to investigate the nature of 

 the distemper ; but he failed to suggest any remedy, and it is now 

 being " stamped out " by killing the dogs whenever seized— an 

 heroic mode of treatment, which will only be successful when the last 

 dog becomes extinct in Greenland. 



Strange to say, the dogs in Kamschatka are also being decimated 

 by a very similar disease ; and, in a recent communication received 

 from that region, it is said that so scarce have dogs become, that the 

 natives do not care to sell them, and that 100 roubles have been 

 refused for a team of six. Fortunately for the Kamschatkans, they 

 have the Reindeer as an ulterior beast of draught and burden. Hr. 

 Otto Torell brought several dogs from Greenland for the use of liis 

 expedition to Spitzbergen in 1861 ; but I believe that, finding them 

 useless (on account of open water), he set them free on Spitzbergen, 

 where they are now rapidly increasing, and will, doubtless, soon 

 return to the original Wolf type. 



Their use in Greenland is almost wholly as sledge-animals. 

 Among the Eskimo on the western shores of Davis's Strait, a loose 

 dog usually precedes the sledge, and, by carefully avoiding broken 

 places in the ice, acts as a guide to the sledgc-team, whicii carefully 



