R. BROWN ON THE MAMMALS OF GREENLAND. 17 



will not eat its prey until it is dead, playing with it like a cat 

 with a mouse. I have known several men who, while sitting 

 watching or skinning Seals, have had its rough hand laid on 

 their shoulder. Their only chance has been then to feign being 

 dead, and manage to shoot it while the Bear was sitting at a 

 distance watching its intended victim. Though Eskimo are 

 often seen who have been scarred by it, yet I repeat that, unless 

 attacked, or rendered fierce by hunger, it rarely attacks man. 

 During our last trip to Greenland none of our party saw one ; 

 indeed they arc only killed in the vicinity of Disco Day during 

 the winter or spring, when they have either come or drifted south 

 on the ice-floes. Six were killed in the vicinity of Omenak 

 during the winter of 1866-67. 



2. VuLPES LAGOPUS (Liuu.) ; Rich. F. B. A. i. 83. 



Greenl. Terienniak, Kaka. 



The Arctic Fox is very numerous in south- and mid-Greenland, 

 rarer in the northern parts of the Danish possessions, but quite 

 plentiful again north of Upernavik to high up in Smith's Sound.* 



There are two varieties, the blue and the white. This colour is 

 not dependent on the season. The white variety is also more 

 numerous and much less valued than the blue; but again the 

 blue and the Avhite varieties interbreed, and often, the Eskimo 

 say, there is a white mother with blue young, and vice versa* 

 The blue Fox is very valuable, the price for the best kind of skin 

 being from six to seven times as much as for that of the white. 

 Some have been sold at the annual auction of the Greenland furs in 

 Copenhagen at over twenty rigsdaler (ninerigsdaler=l/. sterling). 

 There are yearly killed from 1,000 to 3,000 of the white and 

 blue Foxes, two-thirds being blue and one-third white. In 

 Greenland the white is traded for three marks {\s. \^d.\ and 

 the blue for two rigsdaler (4*. Qd.), It is not killed by the 

 Greenlanders in summer, as its summer coat is not valuable. 

 At this time it is found in the mountains preying on the young 

 Ptarmigan {Tetrao reinhardti. Brehm). In winter it comes down 

 to prey on shellfish or other marine produce, at the open 

 places near the shore when the tide breaks the ice. About this 

 period it can often be seen barking most impudently at the 

 solitary hunter. 



3. Canis familiaris, Linn. 



a. var. horealis, 



Greenl. Kemmek or Kremmek. 



(a) The Dog of the Eskimo is the same species all over the 

 American continent ; at least I have seen Dogs from Kamschatka, 



* The Fox is often seen hundreds of miles from land during the sealing 

 season in the Greenland Sea, when it feeds on the dead Seals. In pursuit of 

 the wandering Lemming it sometimes loses its way, and has been taken far 

 from its natural haunt. Kalm mentions one being taken in West Gothland, 

 and Pennant (Suppl. Arct. Zool., p. 52) one killed near Lund, Sweden, 

 lat. hh'' 42' N., on Oct. 27, 1786. See also Von Baer on the Distribution of 

 the Arctic Fox, Bull. Acad., St.-Petersb., t. ix. p. 89. 



36122. 3 



