20 R. BROWN ON THE MAMMALS OF GREENLAND. 



Their use in Greenland is almost wholly as sledge-animals.- 

 Among the Eskimo on the western shores of Davis's Strait, a 

 loose dog usually precedes the sledge, and, by carefully avoiding 

 broken places in the ice, acts as a guide to the sledge-team, which 

 carefully follows his lead. En passant I may remark that dog- 

 driving is by no means an easily acquired or a light labour. In 

 North Greenland and among the wild Arctic highlanders of Cape 

 York and Smith's Sound, dogs are also valuable assistants, by 

 attacking the polar bear while the hunter plants his spears in the 

 animal.* They are also used a little in seal-hunting. Their flesh 

 is also highly appreciated, but rather too valuable for anything 

 except an occasional dainty. The skin is highly valued for socks,, 

 and that of the pups for winter clothing ; but so scarce have they 

 become, that it is now very hard to raise enough for an anarak 

 (jumper), and one of our party paid 18 rigsdaler (2/.) for enough 

 to make an overcoat. No longer, as in Giesecke's day,t is it rejected 

 as an article of trade on account of its disagreeable odour. 



[4. Felis domestica, Briss. 

 Greenl. Kitsuugoak. 



The domestic Cat has been kept in Greenland ever since the 

 Danish women came, and it follows them in all their sojournings 

 north and south. In Fabricius's day it was already not uncommon. 

 At present there are many in Julianeshaab district, where mice 

 are quite abundant and troublesome.] 



5. Myodes torquatus (Pall.), Keys. & Bias. 



This Lemming was found by Capt. Scoresby, in the year 1822,. 

 near Scoresby's Sound, on the east coast of Greenland, lat. 69°^ 

 and was described by the late Professor Traill, in the appendix 

 to Scoresby's " Journal of a Voyage to the Northern Whale- 

 ** fishery, &c.," p. 417, as a new species under the name of Mus 

 groenlandicus. From a careful examination of the original and 

 only specimen, now in the Edinburgh Museum of Science and 

 Art, I am inclined to believe, with MiddendorfF,J that it is 

 not distinct from those already described, and that the Myodes 

 hudsonius of Forster (^Mus hudsonius, Forster in Phil. Trans. 

 Ixii. p. 379 ; Lemmus hudsonius. Sab., Parry's Voyage, p. clxxxv) 

 and the Mus grcenlandicus, Tr. {Myodes grcenlandicus, Wag. 

 and J. E. Gray§, Proc. Zool. Soc. London, xvi. 1848, p. 43^ 

 and Id, in Rae's Narrative, 1850), are identical with the Siberian 

 Myodes torquatus (Pall.), Keys. & Bias. 



It can only be classed as a very rare and local ( possibly accidental) 

 member of the fauna of Greenland, as it has never since been found 



* See an interesting account in Kane's " Arctic Explorations." 



t Giesecke, article " Greenland," in Brewster's *' Edinburgh Encyclopaedia 

 (1830)," vol. X., p. 481. 



X Sib. Reise, II. ii. 1853, p. 87, pis. 4-7 and 10. 



§ Arvicola gromlandia, Rich. /. c. 134 ; vide also Schreber, " Saugetbiere," 

 iii., p. 604; Giebel, "Die Saugethiere," &c. (1859), p. 605. 



