130 
THE VOYAGE OF THE VEGA. 
[giiap. 
and along the whole north coast of Asia. It perhaps therefore 
can scarcely be doubted that it is also to be found on Novaya 
Zeinlya, though we have not hitherto seen it there. On Spitz- 
bergen this bird had only been found before 1872 in single 
specimens, but in that year, to our glad surprise, we discovered 
an actual ptarmigan-fell in the neighbourhood of our winter 
colony, immediately south of the 80th degree of latitude. It 
PTARMIGAN FELL 
]\Iuss(j 1 Bay on Spitzbergen, after a photograph taken by A. EnvaB on the 21st June, 1872. 
formed the haunt of probably a thousand birds; at least a 
couple of hundred were shot there in the course of the winter. 
They probably breed there under stones in summer, and creep¬ 
ing in among the stones pass the winter there, at certain seasons 
doubtless in a kind of torpid state. 
The mode of life of the Spitzbergen ptarmigan is thus widely 
different from that of the Scandinavian ptarmigan, and its flesh 
