154 



THE POLAR WORLD. 



limits which best suit their growth. Hence also the influence of position on 

 vegetation is so great that, while a plain open to the winds is a complete des- 

 ert, a gentle mountain slope not seldom resembles a garden. 



The absence of all trees or shrubs, or even of all vigorous herbage, imparts 

 a character of the deepest solitude to the Nova Zembla landscape, and inspires 

 even the rough sailor with a kind of religious awe. " It is," says Yon Baer, 

 " as if the dawn of creation had but just begun, and life were still to be called 

 into existence." The universal silence is but rarely broken by the noise of an 

 animal. But neither the cry of the sea-mew, wheeling in the air, nor the rus- 

 tling of the lemming in the stunted herbage are able to animate the scene. No 

 voice is heard in calm weather. The rare land-birds are silent as well as the 

 insects, which are comparatively still fewer in number. This tranquillity of 

 nature, particularly during serene days, reminds the spectator of the quiet of 

 the grave; and the lemmings seem like phantoms as they glide noiselessly 

 from burrow to burrow. In our fields even a slight motion of the air becomes 

 visible in the foliage of the trees or in the waving of the corn ; here the low 

 plants are so stiff and immovable that one might suppose them to be painted. 

 The rare sand-bee (Andrena), which on sunny days and in warm places flies 

 about with languid wings, has scarcely the spirit to hum, and the flies and 

 gnats, though more frequent, are equally feeble and inoffensive. 



As a proof of the rarity of insects in Nova Zembla, Yon Baer mentions that 

 not a single larva was to be found in a dead walrus which had been lying at 

 least fourteen days on the shore. The hackneyed phrase of our funeral ser- 

 mons can not therefore be applied to these high latitudes, where even above 

 the earth the decay of bodies is extremely slow. 



However poor the vegetation of Nova Zembla may be, it still suflices to 

 nourish a number of lemmings, which live on leaves, stems, and buds, but not 

 on roots. The slopes of the mountains are often undermined in all directions 

 by their burrows. Next to these lemmings, the Arctic foxes are the most nu- 

 merous quadrupeds, as they find plenty of food in the above-mentioned little 

 rodents, as well as in the young birds, and in the bodies of the marine animals 

 which are cast ashore by the tides. White bears are scarcely ever seen during 

 the summer, and the reindeer seems to have decreased in numbers, at least on 

 the west coast, where they are frequently shot by the Russian morse-hunters. 



The hosts of sea-birds in some parts of the coast prove that the waters are 

 far more prolific than the land. The foolish guillemots ( Uria troile)^ closely 

 congregated in rows, one above the other, on the narrow ledges of vertical 

 rock-walls, make the black stone appear striped with white. Such a breeding- 

 place is called by the Russians a bazar. On the summit of isolated chffs, and 

 suffering no other bird in his vicinity, nestles the large gray sea-mew {Larus 

 glaucus), to whom the Dutch whale-catchers have given the name of "burgh- 

 ermaster." While the ice-bear is monarch of the land animals, this gull appears 

 as the sovereign lord of all the sea-birds around, and no guillemot would ven- 

 ture to dispute the possession of a dainty morsel claimed by the imperious 

 burgherm aster. 



This abundance of the sea has also attracted man to the desert shores of 



