ARCTIC LAND QUADRUPEDS AND BIRDS. 43 



for want of better game, goes out lemming-hunting, and rejoices when he can 

 kill a sufficient number for his dinner. 



Several birds, such as the snowy owl and the ptarmigan {Lago2ms albus), 

 which can easily procure its food under the snow, winter in the highest lati- 

 tudes ; but by far the greater number are merely summer visitants of the Arc- 

 tic regions. After the little bunting, the first arrivals in spring are the snow- 

 geese, who likewise are the first to leave the dreary regions of the north on 

 their southerly migration. The common and king eider-duck, the Brent geese, 



THE SNOWY OWL. 



the great northern black and red throated divers, are the next to make their 

 appearance, followed by the pintail and longtail ducks {Anas caudacuta and 

 glacialis), the latest visitors of the season. These birds generally take their 

 departure in the same order as they arrive. The period of their , stay is but 

 short, but their presence imparts a wonderfully cheerful aspect to regions at 

 other times so deserted and dreary. As soon as the young are sufficiently 

 fledged, they again betake themselves to the southward ; the character of the 

 season much influencing the period of their departure. 



As far as man has penetrated, on the most northern islets of Spitzbergen, 

 or on the ice-blocked shores of Kennedy Channel, the eider-duck and others 

 of the Arctic anatidse build their nests ; and there is no reason to doubt that 

 if the pole has breeding-places for them, it re-echoes with their cries. Nor 

 need they fear to plunge into the very heart of the Arctic zone, for the flight 

 of a goose being forty or fifty miles an hour, these birds may breed in the re- 

 motest northern solitude, and in a few hours, on a fall of deep autumn snow, 

 convey themselves by their swiftness of wing to better feeding-grounds. 



One of the most interesting of the Arctic birds is the snow-bunting (Plec- 

 trophanes nivalis), which may properly be called the polar singing-bird, as it 

 breeds in the most northern isles, such as Spitzbergen and Nova j a Zemlya, or 



