Animals available as Food in the Arctic Regions. 297 



mals, like the reindeer, are found to the south of this line — 

 still these are not exclusively Arctic in their character, and 

 they are also, more or less, of migratory habits. The ice-fox, a 

 beautiful little animal, well known to Arctic voyagers, and 

 decidedly of Arctic character, does not in general extend to 

 the south of the line assumed ;* which also coincides with the 

 extreme northern limit of the reptiles, and corresponds 

 pretty closely with the line of 50°, mean summer temperature. 

 The region thus comprises Iceland, Spitzbergen, Nova 

 Zembla, the extreme northern shores of Europe and Asia, 

 with the north-eastern extremity of the latter, including also 

 the sea of Kamtschatka and the Aleutian Islands, but exclud- 

 ing the peninsula of Kamtschatka. On the American side it 

 comprises a considerable portion of British North America, 

 the northern part of Labrador, and the whole of Greenland. 

 Though several classes of the animal creation — as, for ex- 

 ample, the reptiles — are entirely wanting in this region, 

 those of the mammals, birds, and fishes, at least bear com- 

 parison, both as to number and size, with those of the tropics, f 



* The only exception, I believe, where the Arctic fox ranges southward 

 within the wooded district occurs in North America round Hudson Bay. This 

 is owing to its habit of keeping as much as possible on the coast in migrating to 

 the south ; thus, while they extend along the shore of Hudson Bay to about 50° N". 

 lat., towards the centre of the continent they are very scarce, even in lat. 61°, 

 and in lat. 65° they are only seen in winter, and then not in numbers. — (See 

 Richardson, Fauna Boreali Americana, p. 87.) Throughout the whole of the 

 Asiatic and European north the range of the ice-fox is nowhere found to be 

 within the wooded region, as Baer has shewn in his masterly account of the 

 distribution of this animal. — (See Bullet. Scientif. publiee par V Acad. Imp.de St 

 Petcrsbourg, torn. ix. p. 89.) 



t Though the number of species is decidedly inferior, the immense multi- 

 tudes of individuals compensate for this deficiency. Some years ago I wrote 

 with regard to this point — " If we were to conclude from a large number of 

 species that there must be a large number of individuals, we should come to 

 erroneous conclusions; for such is frequently not the case. The Arctic and 

 tropical countries furnish an excellent example, at least in their Mammalian 

 and Ornithological Faunas. We need only refer to the crowds of birds which 

 hover over the islands and shores of the north, or to the inconceivable myriads 

 of penguins met with by Ross on the Antarctic lands, where there was not even 

 the smallest appearance of vegetation ; and, among the quadrupeds, to the 

 thousands of fur animals that are annually killed in the Arctic regions. 

 Wrangell gives a fine description of animal life in the Kolyma district of 

 Siberia, one of the coldest regions of the globe : the poverty of vegetation is 



