148 A TOTAGE TO SPITZBEEGElir, ETC. 



supplementary to the bullet, was necessary to secure the victim. 

 Several of the Great Bearded Seal, Plioca larlata, were also ob- 

 served, but none secured, though one at least was killed. He 

 rolled oif the ice-edge, and sank before a harpoon could reach 

 him. 



Starting early one August morning, in a driving snowstorm, we 

 succeeded in reaching the head of Yan Keulen's Bay in Kjeldsen's 

 whale boat. The upper waters swarmed with "White "Whales, 

 but in the ''choppy" sea Kjeldsen failed to '' get fast." These 

 "Whales are always too active to be easily captured by the har- 

 poon. Plate IV. 



On the small rocky islands were great numbers of Brent Geese 

 breeding. The Grey Geese here, as at Magdalena Bay, seemed 

 to prefer the hill slopes of the mainland for incubation. This, 

 the Norwegians stated, is because these large Geese are able to 

 repel the attacks of the Arctic Foxes on their young, while the 

 smaller Brent Geese are obliged to resort to the islands for safety. 

 "We saw many Seals in this Bay, but the water was too ''lumpy" 

 for accurate shooting. I killed one with a bullet from an ordi- 

 nary 12-bore. 



Leaving Bel Sound we returned to Ice Fjord to resume opera- 

 tions against the Deer ; but our hopes of reaching the upper 

 waters of the Sound were frustrated by ice, and we were unable 

 to advance further than our former anchorage at Green Haven. 

 Even here our progress was arrested by a barrier of drifted Bay- 

 ice, through which the "Pallas" had to force a passage, crashing 

 through ice a foot thick for a mile or so. In Green Haven we 

 picked up the crew of a l^orwegian whaling schooner, which had 

 been caught in the ice, and lay stranded on the rocks at the en- 

 trance. Plate V. 



One morning a "Walrus was reported to have been seen among 

 the loose ice in this fjord, the only instance of its occurrence on 

 our expedition. This strange Arctic monster has now almost 

 disappeared from the navigable seas of "Western Spitzbergen, 

 The wanton and indiscriminate persecution of the [N'orwegian 

 whalers has gradually driven the Walrus back to the ice-bound 



