56 
when one, in summer pelage, was shot among the rocks at Takuirbing river, 
Nettilling lake. On June 6, an individual in winter coat was found dead 
on the tundra and, on the following day, Constable T. Tredgold, R.C.M.P., 
shot another among the rocks near the shore of Nettilling lake. An adult 
was shot on June 11. A juvenile was shot near Takuirbing river on June 
23. The species was not again observed until April 22, 1926, when an adult 
was captured on the ice near the north end of Amadjuak lake. Two were 
shot at cape Dorset, on June 4 and 17 respectively, among the rocks near 
the sea. On August 7, one was captured with the hands at Amadjuak bay. 
Three adults were secured from Eskimos at McGee lake, some distance 
inland from Amadjuak bay. 
Evidently referring to this species, J. C. Ross (1835, p. 93) states that 
a few were seen at Port Bowen in the winter of 1824-25. Under the name 
of Myodes torquatus, Kumlien (1879, p. 53) writes of this species at Cum- 
berland gulf, in 1877-78: 
“I procured but a single specimen of the lemming; this was caught near cape Mercy. 
They may yet be common somewhere along the sound, as I saw traces in different places 
where we stopped. According to the Eskimos they are getting less common every year. 
Whalemen have told me that twenty years ago some ships procured as many as four 
hundred skins at Niantilic, in the spring, from the young Eskimo, who killed them with 
bows and arrows.” 
Both the traces that Kumlien saw, and the skins referred to by the 
whalemen, may possibly be of trimucronatus. 
Hantzsch (1913, p. 150) records that a number of Dicrostonyx (listed 
as Dicrostonyx hudsonius richardsoni Merriam) were noted at Blacklead 
island in the spring of 1909. He says: “It seems noteworthy that among 
more than thirty specimens which I had in hand, only a single female was 
found." In the winter he observed them very rarely. On the way to 
Nettilling lake he saw an individual in summer pelage running about over 
a lake on June 14, 1910. He records the species as very numerous at 
Tikerakdjuak (Nettilling lake) during July. The first young were observed 
the beginning of August. A few lemming trails were observed during 
December and January in the vicinity of the winter quarters on Foxe 
channel, near the mouth of Koukdjitariak river. Allen and Copeland 
(1924, p. 10), on the authority of MacMillan, state that this species is 
“very numerous everywhere, winter and summer" in the region of Bowdoin 
harbour and cape Dorset. There was evidently a great falling off in 
numbers between the time of MacMillan’s visit in 1922 and the writer’s 
in 1926. 
The comparative rarity of groenla adieus on Baffin island throughout the 
period of the present writer’s stay, rendered it impossible to ascertain 
anything of importance regarding the life history of the species. Allen 
and Copeland (1924, p. 11) writing from information supplied by Mac- 
Millan say, “He had many as pets and they were easily tamed. They fed 
largely on the bark of the dwarf willow. In the winter they tunnelled long 
passages under the snow, and these led up through to the surface with a 
clean, round hole about if inches in diameter. When surprised and cut 
off from retreat, they would stand up on their hind legs, strike their fore- 
paws together, chatter with their teeth, and squeak. The Arctic fox and 
the snowy owl seemed to be their chief enemies, as well as the wolf, ermine, 
and rough-legged hawk". Hantzsch (1913, p. 150) writes that a snowy 
owl, a peregrine falcon, and a fox, which they captured, had nothing but 
the remains of this lemming in their stomachs. 
