ARCTIC MARINE ANIMALS. 



59 



CHAPTER lY. 



ARCTIC MARINE ANIMALS. 



Populousness of the Arctic Seas.— The Greenland Whale. —The Fin Whales. — The Narwhal.— 

 The Beluga, or White Dolphin.— The Black Dolphin.— His wholesale Massacre on the Faeroe Isl- 

 ands.— The Ore, or Grampus.— The Seals.— The Walrus.— Its acute Smell.— History of a young 

 Walrus.— Parental Affection.— The Polar Bear.— His Sagacity.— Hibernation of the She-bear.— 

 Sea-birds. 



THE vast multitudes of animated beings which people the Polar Seas form 

 a remarkable contrast to the nakedness of their bleak and desolate shores. 

 The colder surface-waters almost perpetually exposed to a chilly air, and fre- 

 quently covered, even in summer, with floating ice, are indeed unfavorable to 

 the development of organic life ; but this adverse influence is modified by the 

 higher temperature which constantly prevails at a greater depth ; for, contrary 

 to what takes place in the equatorial seas, we find in the Polar Ocean an in- 

 crease of temperature from the surface downward, in consequence of the 

 warmer under-currents, flowing from the south northward, and passing be- 

 neath the cold waters of the superficial Arctic current. 



Thus the severity of the Polar winter remains unfelt at a greater depth of 

 the sea, where myriads of creatures find a secure retreat against the frost, and 

 whence they emerge during the long summer's day, either to line the shores or 

 to ascend the broad rivers of the Arctic world. Between the parallels of 74° 

 and 80° Scoresby observed that the color of the Greenland sea varies from the 

 purest ultramarine to olive green, and from crystalline transparency to striking 

 opacity — appearances which are not transitory, but permanent. This green 

 semi-opaque water, whose position varies with the currents, often forming iso- 

 lated stripes, and sometimes spreading over two or three degrees of latitude, 

 mainly owes its singular aspect to small medusae and nudibranchiate molluscs. 

 It is calculated to form one-fourth part of the surface of the sea between the 

 above-mentioned parallels, so that many thousands of square miles are absolute- 

 ly teeming with life. 



On the coast of Greenland, where the waters are so exceedingly clear that 

 the bottom and every object upon it are plainly visible even at a depth of 

 eighty fathoms, the ground is seen covered with gigantic tangles, which, togeth- 

 er with the animal world circulating among their fronds, remind the spectator 

 of the coral-reefs of the tropical ocean. Nullipores, mussels, alcyonians, sertu- 

 larians, ascidians, and a variety of other sessile animals, incrust every stone or 

 fill every hollow or crevice of the rocky ground. A dead seal or fish thrown 

 into the sea is soon converted into a skeleton by the myriads of small crustaceans 

 which infest these northern waters, and, like the ants in the equatorial forests, 

 perform the part of scavengers of the deep. 



