598 



NA TORE 



[November 4, 1922 



industry, which has been developed during recent years 

 in Spitsbergen and now finds employment for some 1300 

 miners, iooo of whom, some of them with their wives 

 and families, remain through the winter. This colonisa- 



tion has effected some remarkable innovations, among 

 others the establishment of no less than eight wireless 

 stations whence messages may be despatched to 

 Britain at a rate of fourpence per word ! 



The larger mammals, such as the Polar bear, walrus, 

 and right whale, once extremely 

 numerous, have long ago been 

 exterminated, and now only strag- 

 glers appear at intervals as rare 

 waifs. The faunal changes, how- 

 ever, are likely to be much more 

 rapid in the future than in the 

 past, since there is now a con- 

 siderable human population — one 

 that will doubtless soon be con- 

 siderably increased — and Spits- 

 bergen being a no-man's-land, no 

 protection can be imposed, and 

 its animal life will suffer accord- 

 ingly. There are three character- 

 istic animals in the archipelago 

 which are likely to become extinct, 

 namely, the reindeer (Rangifer 

 platyrhynchus), which is endemic, 

 the fox (Cants spitzbergensis), and 

 the ptarmigan (Lagopus hyperboreus) 

 very numerous and still unsophisticated, has been 

 ruthlessly slaughtered in recent years. The fox since 

 the advent of the Norwegian hunter, with his traps and 

 NO. 2766, VOL. I 10] 



poison, has been almost exterminated in places where 

 it once occurred in hundreds. There is only one species 

 of fox in Spitsbergen, the two species alluded to by 

 Mr. Gordon being colour-phases due to season or age. 

 Special efforts were made by the 

 expedition to find the ptarmi- 

 gan, the only resident land 

 bird, but without success, though 

 all their likely haunts were 

 visited, including a valley where 

 Mr. Gordon tells us in 1920 no 

 less than fifty brace were shot 

 in a single afternoon by members 

 of the Scottish Spitsbergen Syndi- 

 cate. These birds must afford 

 poor sport, for Dr. van Oordt 

 tells us they are so tame that 

 they can easily be killed with 

 stones. 



The eider is another bird 

 that is rigorously and system- 

 atically persecuted. Enormous 

 Wastes." numbers of its eggs are annually 



taken for food and down is col- 

 lected from their nests — both for sale in Norway. 

 Mr. Gordon relates that one sloop, which had already 

 15,000 eggs on board, was still engaged in adding 

 hundreds of eggs daily to the hoard, ft is to be 

 hoped that the rarer and more interesting species 



Purple Sandpiper 



The deer, once 



alluded to are also natives of the eastern isles of 

 the Archipelago, which are so beset with ice that 

 they are little known,, and that thus they may escape 

 extinction. W. E. C. 



