276 E. K. von Baer/.s Description of 



those captured by us could in no way be brought to eat the smallest 

 root. Since, therefore, when they are at large they certainly devour 

 the flowers only and green parts, and since the plants of this country 

 are all perennial, in the following year they again put forth a stem. 

 I was still more surprised that when suffering the greatest hunger they 

 would touch no Cryptogamia. It is a pity that the small number of 

 ferns which have been found did not allow us to make trial whether 

 these practical vegetable physiologists direct themselves according to 

 the presence of spiral vessels, or follow the divisions of the Linnsean 

 system. There are two kinds of them ; one seems to be Mus groenlan- 

 dicus, Traill, or Mus hudsonius, Auct. They quite agree with the de- 

 scription which Richardson gives in the ' Fauna Boreali- Americana ; ' 

 less with that of Pallas. The other species likewise appears to me 

 distinct from the Scandinavian lemming ; in the colour the difference is 

 truly striking. Pallas, who however seems only to have seen young 

 animals, has enumerated it as a Russian variety of the Scandinavian 

 lemming. The first is particularly distinguished by its tameness, for, 

 four-and-twenty hours after it had been caught, it hardly made any 

 attempt to escape when held free upon the hand, and one never sees 

 two individuals of this species quarrelling together. The second, yel- 

 lowish-brown species is much more ready to fight. 



Next to the lemmings the polar foxes are also tolerably numerous. 

 They find in the lemmings, in young birds, and in the sea-animals 

 which are thrown up on the shore, a plentiful sustenance. 



On the contrary, polar bears are seldom seen in summer, either 

 because they avoid the places where they scent men, or because they 

 only collect together on those parts of the coast where there is 

 ice. The rein-deer also appear to have become rare, on the 

 western coast at least, from the numerous winterings of late years 

 of the seal-fishers. Not only were very few killed during our resi- 

 dence, but one of the companies which had passed the winter before 

 in Nova Zembla, and had been advised to procure a provision of flesh 

 by hunting the rein-deer, had not been able to obtain any. Wolves 

 and common foxes, which, at least in the southern part of Nova Zem- 

 bla, also sometimes occur, appear never to have been numerous even 

 there. With this enumeration the list of land Mammalia would be 

 complete, if MM. Pachtussow and Ziwolka had not, during their 

 winter stay, seen a little white animal within their hut, which they 

 in their journal call a mouse. As the animal seen, according to M. 

 Ziwolka' s testimony, must have been larger than a common domestic 

 mouse, and therefore could not be an individual of the white variety 

 of this animal brought by chance in some ship, I am doubtful as to 



