176 



THE EUEOPEAN ISLANDS OF THE AECTIC OCEAN. 



consisting of 81 plants common to Greenland, and 69 found also in Scandinavia. 

 Of the various species there is only one edible, the Cochlearia fenestrata, which, 

 being less bitter than its southern congeners, may be eaten as a salad, and also 

 supplies a valuable preventive against scurvy. 



Including the cetacea, there are 16 species of mammals, of which 4 only 

 are land animals ; and even the white bear is rather nomadic than indigenous, 



Fig. 86.— Foul Bay, Spitzrergen. 



passing on floating ice from island to island. The other land mammals are the 

 reindeer, a short-tailed rat like that found on the shores of Hudson Bay, 

 and the arctic fox, hunted for its valuable fur. The reindeer was supposed to 

 have been introduced bv the Russians or Scandinavians : but in 1610, lono- before 

 they reached the archipelago, the English explorer, Jonas Poole, hunted the rein- 

 deer, and gave its name to Horn Sound, from the antlers of one of these animals 

 which he there found. Between 1860 and 1868 as many as 3,000 were annually 



