13-2 
THE VOYAGE OF THE VEGA. 
[chap. 
appears to consider as its own poultry-yard. In fact, the 
marking of this bird of prey is so similar to that of its victim 
that the latter can scarcely perhaps know how to take care of 
itself. On Spitzbergen the snowy owl is very rare ; but on 
Novaya Zemlya and the North coast of Asia—where the lem¬ 
ming, which is wanting on Spitzbergen, occurs in great crowds 
•—it is common. It commonly sits immoveable on an open 
mountain slope, visible at a great distance, from the strong 
contrast of its white colour with the greyish-green ground. 
Even in the brightest sunshine, unlike other owls, it sees 
exceedingly well. It is very shy, and therefore difficult to 
shoot. The snow ptarmigan and the snowy owl are the only 
birds of which we know with certainty that they winter on 
Spitzbergen, and both are, according to Hedenstrom, native 
to the New Siberian Islands {Otryioki o Sihiri, p. 112). 
In the cultivated regions of Europe the larger mammalia 
are so rare that most men in their whole lifetime have never 
seen a wild mammal so large as a dog. This is not the case 
in the high north. The number of the larger mammalia here 
is indeed no longer so large as in the seventeenth century, when 
their capture yielded an abundant living to from twenty to 
thirty thousand men ; but sport on Novaya Zemlya and Spitz¬ 
bergen still supports several hundred hunters, and during 
summer scarcely a day passes without a visitor of the coasts of 
these islands seeing a seal or a walrus, a reindeer or a Polar 
bear. In order to present a true picture of the Polar traveller’s 
surroundings and mode of life, it is absolutely necessary to 
give a sketch of the occurrence and mode of life of the wild 
mammalia in the Polar lands. 
I shall make a beginning with the reindeer. This grami¬ 
nivorous animal goes nearly as far to the north as the land in 
the old world. It was not, indeed, observed by Payer on Franz 
Josef Land, but traces of the reindeer were seen by us on 
