A VOYAGE TO SPITZBEEGEN, ETC. 151 



of the Arctic winter, sharing the desolate domain with the Polar 

 Bear, the Eeindeer, and Arctic Pox. How it survives the ter- 

 rible extremities of the winter climate, or what it finds to eat 

 when all is buried in ice and snow, is difficult to imagine. I 

 suppose they will burrow deep into the frozen snow (for which 

 their solid badger-like claws are well adapted), as our Grouse do 

 on a winter's night at home ; but what to them is only a few 

 hours' roost must almost amount to months of hybernation to 

 the Spitzbergen Ptarmigan. 



In respect of its summer migrants I was somewhat disap- 

 pointed in Spitzbergen, having gone there in hopes of finding it 

 the breeding place of many of our winter wild-fowl. These 

 hopes were perhaps unwarranted, as I was well posted in the 

 ornithological work that had previously been done in Spitzbergen, 

 and before I sailed Professor JN'ewton also kindly sent me his ex- 

 cellent paper on the subject, (cf. "Ibis," April, 1865.) 



There are two reasons which explain this comparative absence 

 of wild-fowl proper. Pirst, the natural features of the country 

 are not at all adapted to the economy of the Anatidse and Waders. 

 The coasts being rocky and precipitous afford none of those wide 

 tidal oozes which are so attractive to these birds. Secondly, it 

 lies to the north and westward of the general track of migrating 

 wildfowl, which appears to be, in the main, coincident with the 

 course of the Gulf Stream. This great ocean current, after 

 sweeping round the western coasts of Ireland and Scotland, and 

 the whole seaboard of !N"orway, is divided, by meeting with a cold 

 Polar current* off the northern extremity of the Scandinavian 

 Peninsula, into two forks or streams. The larger volume of Gulf 

 water proceeds eastwards towards Novaya Zemlya and the coast 

 of Siberia, while the smaller offshoot, continuing its northerly 

 course, impinges on the "West Coast of Spitzbergen, and is finally 

 absorbed in the frozen seas beyond. 



Almost analogous in result appears to be the northward migra- 

 tion of wildfowl, though not necessarily on the same lines, nor 



♦The current referred to, issuing from the unknown Archipelago of Franz Josef 

 Land, causes the accumulation of pack-ice in the latitude of Bear Island which I have 

 already mentioned. 



