21 



in that way we repeatedly lured them out. By and by, we 

 caught sight of 5 of the 8 members of the family; the most 

 prominent one was the old female, that was very ill-tempered 

 and seemed to be completely in command of the others. Now 

 Master Lyhne shot two animals, both of them young males. 

 One of them we used to allure others with, by tying a string round 

 its waist, and placing it on a stone near the hole, where the 

 old one several times had appeared. Nor was it long before 

 she rushed out, got hold of the dead son, and tried to haul 

 him down into the hole. By drawing the dead animal over 

 a catcher, we succeeded in catching the female that followed ; 

 but she slipped out again. However strangely it sounds , we 

 got her twice more into the catcher, both times we got hold 

 of her, both times she slipped away, last time not till we were 

 on the point of putting her down into a telescope-case, to bring 

 her on board alive; finally we were obliged to shoot her, not 

 being able to make her pass into the catcher any more. During 

 all this, some ermines had slipped down towards the beach 

 along the runs, filled with stones, and hidden themselves there. 

 The day after, a young female of the same family was killed 

 there in the same place ; thus we carried with us 4 ermines 

 in all. — On August 9, Hartz saw an ermine in Hurry Inlet, 

 on the Jameson Land side, and finally Ditlevsen again saw an 

 ermine in Segelsällskapets Fjord, on August 30, opposite to 

 Berzelii Mountain. All the ermines that were seen were in 

 summer dress. 



Ditlevsen found in the dwelling, that he discovered in 

 Turner Sund, a lemming, killed by the ermines; it had the 

 peculiarly rank smell, possessed by the ermine, and which is 

 due to its anal glands. A little hole behind the ear of the 

 lemming had been bit by the ermine. Probably the lemming 

 serves as the main food of the ermine, and must be supposed 

 to be common in these regions. 



At Angmagsalik the ermine is not known, nor was it 



