148 
THE VOYAGE OF THE VEGA. 
[chap. hi. 
plentifully, Dr. Stiixberg having been able during the Yenisej ex¬ 
pedition of 1875 to collect a very large number of them, which 
were worked out after his return — the podurids by Dr. T. 
Tullbekg of Upsala, the arachnids by Dr. T. Koch of Niirnberg. 
These small animals are found in very numerous individual speci¬ 
mens, among mouldering vegetable remains, under stones and 
pieces of wood on the beach, creeping about on grass, straws, &c. 
Gf the insects proper there were brought home from Novaya 
Zemlya, during the same expedition, nine species of coleoptera, 
which were determined by Professor F. W. Maklin, of Hel¬ 
singfors.^ Some few hemiptera and lepidoptera and orthoptera, 
and a large number of hymenoptera and diptera from the same 
expedition have been examined by Lector A. E. Holmgeen of 
Stockholm. Dr. Stuxberg also collected a large number of 
land-worms, which have been described by our countryman Dr. 
G. Eisen, now settled in California. The occurrence of this 
animal group in a region where the ground at the depth of a 
few inches is continually frozen, appears to me exceedingly 
remarkable—and from a general point of view the occurrence of 
insects in a land which is exposed to a winter cold below \he 
freezing-point of mercury, and where the animal cannot seek 
protection from it by creeping down to a stratum of earth which 
never freezes, presupposes that either the insect itself, its egg, 
larva, or pupa, may be frozen stiff without being killed. Only 
^ As the only Clirysomela, which von Baer found at Matotschkin Schar, 
played so great a role in Arctic-zoological literature, I shall here enumerate 
the species of coleoptera, now known—after Professor Maklin’s determina¬ 
tion of the collections which we brought home with us—to exist on Novaya 
Zemlya. These are:— Feronia borealis M4netr., F. gelida Makl., Amara 
alpina Fabr., Agabus suhguadratus Motsch., Honialota sibirica Makh, 
Homaliiim angustatum Makh, Cylletron (?) liyperboreum Makh, Chrysomela 
septentrionalis {f) Menetr., Prasocuris hannoverana Fabr., v. degenerata. 
From Vaygats Island we brought home seven species more, which were 
not found on Novaya Zemlya. The insects occur partly under stones, 
especially at places where lemming dung is abundant, or in tracts where 
birds’-nests are numerous, partly in warm days on willow-bushes. 
