16k Canadian Arctic Expedition, 1913-18 



September ISO 



By the beginning of September, 1913, the first signs of winter were apparent. 

 On September 3, a landing was made on Spy island,' one of the Jones islands off the 

 Colville delta, where the only animal life noticed was a few small spiders (Typho- 

 craestus spitsbergensis) in plant tufts, and colonies of small grey-violet collembola 

 together with a few oligochaete worms and fly larvae under the washed-up layer 

 of algse around the large lagoon. A few of the more hardy insects (flies, etc.) 

 are still on the wing on warm, calm days, besides a number of insects on the 

 ground. The hairy Gynaephora or Hyphoraia larvae are crawUng around looking 

 for hibernating quarters. 



The close of summer arrives between the end of August, at point Barrow, 

 and the middle of September, at the Mackenzie delta, the point being about 

 one degree farther north than the delta. 



In the middle of September, 1913, winter had set in at Camden bay. At 

 the end of the month an occasional warm day may melt much of the snow, and 

 insects, though in their quarters for the winter (see below), are more lively. 

 Insects on the wing are absent, but Scatella brunnipennis, seemingly associated 

 with the excrement of mice {Microtus sp.), whose burrows are common, may be 

 found under driftwood. Small spiders, mites, and Collembola, beetles, cara- 

 bidae, staphylinidae, the latter in colonies, Chrysomela subsulcata, dytiscidae, 

 besides larvae and pupae of these beetles are also seen in moss-pillows (beetle 

 pupae often in special small cells), and manv empty pupa cases and cocoons 

 of flies and hymenoptera, fly-larvae, etc. The hemipteron {Chiloxanthes stel- 

 latus) seems to be one ol the few insects moving around freely at the middle ol 

 September. A cocoon with a sawfly larvae was found on a willow branch; but 

 most of the sawflies now hibernate in the ground or among dead leaves. 



Large elaterid (?) larvae are present among plant roots in frozen ground 

 and minute orange dipterous larvae bore in the root of Pedicularis. The 

 depth at which the larvae of the common tipulids hibernate is interesting. They 

 are found not only in the moss, but about ono inch below the plant cover, in 

 solidly frozen " muck." The larva makes, betore the ground freezes, a cell a 

 Uttle larger than itself and communicating with the air. In this cell the stiff- 

 frozen larvae lie, heads uppermost, awaiting spring. 



All these hibernating insects on cold days seem to be frozen still or hardly 

 move, but when brought into a warm place will liven up again. The temper- 

 ture of the snow-covered ground is generally one or two degrees warmer than 

 the air. 



MACKENZIE DELTA TO CAPE BATHURST 



Trees (not willows) grow farther north along the Mackenzie river than in 

 other parts of the American Arctic except in the region north of Great Bear 

 lake and in the Arctic mountains. North of the woods the delta is one maze 

 of low, flat, alluvial islands covered with dense thickets of willows and alders 

 which gradually diminish in height and luxuriance as the outer rim of the islands 

 is approached (PI. II, fig. 1). Hills continue south along the east branch of 

 the delta and on the exposed small islands Garry, Pelly, Kendall, Pullen, 

 Hooper, etc., but everywhere the soil is mud and clay. Little is known of the 

 vegetation in these " barren " parts of the delta, and only a few insects have 

 been collected. Plant and insect life seems to be the same both east and west 

 of the delta. 



Some hymenoptera and coleoptera were collected by R, M. Anderson'', 

 1910, in the barren and wooded parts of the Mackenzie delta. 



1 Vegetation Is very scarce on this sandy island. 



2 "My Life with the Eskimos" (V. Stefansson), New Yorli, 1913, Appendix p. 449. 



