180 Non-Mfp-ration 



>=>' 



the animals so lean, and -winter- pulled, that no one could suppose' 

 they had been revelling on the American Continent, and had just 

 rushed up to 76° North to enjoy a low temperature and Lenten; 

 fave : tliey had their young fawns with them, which was an ad- 

 ditional argument against a journey which, to and fro, could' 

 hardly be less than 2000 miles ; and it is as well to remember 

 that distance tells on animals as well as men. 



Captains M'Ckire and Kellett testify to these animals being: 

 found all the winter round, about the spots they wintered in. 

 This narrative contains several remarkable passages, extracted from 

 the former officer's journal upon that head ; we wiiladd one more, 

 dated December 1852. "The deer have for the last few days,"' 

 he says,^ "been coming from the soutJiward to their winter 

 quarters amongst the ravines and sandliills : ninety have been met 

 with at one time, and forty at another ; but they are so wild that 

 few have been shot. Our two seasons'' experience shows that 

 these animals do not migrate to the south, ei^ is generally suppo- 

 sed, but bear the extreme rigour of the climate, and exist upon 

 the scanty herbage here found, chiefly that dwarf willow, from oft" 

 which they break the snow with their feet, and in doing so make 

 a tapping noise that may be heard at a considerable distance- 

 when the weather is calm, frequently leading to their discovery by 

 our sportsmen. The hares and ptarmigan have also descended 

 from the high ground to the sea ridges, so that a fair supply of 

 game is brought in." 



In 1853,, immediately after some months of bitter temperature, 

 the writer landed on the north shore of Bathurst Land, and was 

 not a little surprised to observe tlmt reindeer were very numerous^ 

 on the uplands r they were browsing, with their last year's fawns^. 

 upon a miserable vegetation which any other animal would have 

 starved upon : the only plant- wliich they did not appear to have 

 touched was the saxifrage, notwithstanding that the young 

 shoots or buds are remarkably sweet,- and the favourite food of the 

 ptarmigan. 



That the reindeer crosses the firm ice of the archipelago in the 

 spring, no one can. deny ; but it is' in search of food,, not to avoid 

 a rigour of climate which ^Jfature has provided them with an 

 admirable organisation to meet ; but those tracks of deer, and 

 sometimes the creatures themselves, have only been seen going in 

 an easterly and westerly direction, between the islands of Melville, 

 Bathurst, and Cornwallis, upon the one hand, and Melville, Eglin- 



