144 ON THE MAMMALS OF THE HUDSON'S CAY TERRITORY. 



itself most gallantly against the attack of two large gulls, whicli 

 continued swooping down at it, but were kept at bay by the 

 brave little animal turning on its back and squealing loudly. I 

 ran up and was in time to drive away its dangerous opponents, 

 and place it in safe shelter under a piece of ice. 



Occasionally large numbers of lemmings are found drowned 

 along the shores of James's Bay, but as they are generally seen 

 after a very high tide, it is uncertain whether they are then 

 migrating, or merely caught by the high tide on their native 

 grounds. As soon as snow falls to any considerable depth, the 

 lemming leaves its summer quarters in the ground, and builds 

 a bed of grass and moss as a winter shelter, from which it 

 bores under the snow in one or more directions to obtain food. 

 They do not seem to hibernate during the winter, for when 

 wintering in a snow-hut at Eepulse Bay in 1853-4 I used to 

 hear them scratching tracks through the snow throughout the 

 cold season*. 



The Arctic hare {Lepus glacialis), of which I have seen and 

 shot a good many, shows a considerable amount of intelligence 

 in its efforts to throw foxes, wolves, and other enemies off the 

 scent. It seems to have been eminently successful in this re- 

 spect with tbe crew of McClure's ship when wintering in Prince 

 of Wales's Strait, if it were not from bad shooting on the 

 part of the men, for we are told that although hundreds of 

 hares were seen, the total bag in a month was only seven 

 hares ! 



The Arctic hare, after its night's feed, usually goes some dis- 

 tance from its feeding-ground before settling down in its form 

 for the day. When following up the track, I was at first ex- 

 tremely puzzled to find all at once a complication of tracks, and 

 on going a little further found no track at all. On retracing my 

 steps and carefully examining the snow, I observed two very small 

 marks, at least 20 feet distant, from the main track. A succes- 

 sion of two or three similar long jumps followed, and a very little 

 experience taught me that the hare was always crouching near ; 

 usually close to some large stones or rock uncovered by snow. 

 These long jumps were invariably made to leeward for obvious 

 reasons, because if to windward a fox would have scented his prey. 



* Many lemmings were seen at the winter quarters of the Nares Arctic 

 Expedition, in lat. 82°, and a large " cache " of dead ones was found, made by 

 a white fox. — J. R. 



