298 Mr Petermann's Notes on the Distribution of 



— the lion, the elephant, the hippopotamus, and others, 

 being not more notable in the latter respect than the polar 

 bear, the musk ox, the walrus, and, above all, the whale. 

 Besides these, there are the moose, the reindeer, the wolf, 

 the polar hare, the seal, and various smaller quadrupeds. 

 The birds consist chiefly of an immense number of aquatic 

 species. Of fishes, the salmon, salmon-trout, and herring 

 are the principal, the latter especially occurring in such 

 myriads as to surpass everything of the kind met with in 

 tropical countries. Nearly all these animals furnish whole- 

 some food for man. They are, with few exceptions, distri- 

 buted over the entire region. The number in which they 

 occur is very different in different parts. Thus, on the Ame- 

 rican side we find the animals increase in number from E. to 

 W. — on the shores of Davis Strait, Baffin Bay, Lancaster 

 Sound, Regent Inlet, fewer are met with than in Boothia 

 Felix and the Parry Group. The abundance of animal life 

 in Melville Island and Victoria Channel is probably not sur- 

 passed in any part of the American side. Proceeding west- 

 ward to the Russian possessions, we find considerable num- 

 bers of animals all round and within the sea of Kamtschatka, 

 as also to the north of Behring Strait. The yearly produce of 

 the Russian Fur Company in America is immense, and 

 formerly it was much greater. Pribylow, when discovering 

 the islands named after him, collected within two years 

 2000 skins of sea otters, 40,000 sea bears (Ursine seals), 

 6000 dark ice foxes, and 1000 pood of walrus teeth. Liitke, 

 in his Voyage round the World, mentions that, in the year 



strongly contrasted with the rich abundance of animals; countless herds of 

 reindeer, elks, black bears, foxes, sables, and grey squirrels, fill the upland 

 forests ; stone foxes and wolves roam over the low grounds. Enormous flights 

 of swans, geese, and ducks, arrive in spring, and seek deserts, where they may 

 moult and build their nests in safety. Eagles, owls, and gulls pursue their 

 prey along the sea-coast; ptarmigans in troops among the bushes, and little 

 snipes are busy along the brooks and in the morasses. Baer also relates that a 

 walrus hunter on the rocks of Nova Zembla caught in a few hours 30,000 

 lemmings. On the other hand, in Australia, and other regions of the tropical 

 and temperate zones, a traveller will frequently journey for weeks together, 

 and pass over hundreds of miles of country, without meeting with a single 

 quadruped." — See Atlas of Physical Geography, by Petermann and Milner, 

 p. 130. 





