322 
THE VOYAGE OF THE VEGA. 
[chap. 
than the region now in question. This seems to me to show 
that the insect fauna of Spitzbergen, exceedingly inconsiderable 
and limited in numbers as it is, has migrated thither in com¬ 
paratively recent times, and in how high a degree the migration 
of beetles is rendered difficult by their inability to pass broad 
expanses of water. 
By afternoon the air had again cleared somewhat, so that we 
could sail on. A piece of ice was seen here and there, and at 
night the ice increased for a little to ari unpleasant extent. 
Now, however, it did not occur in such quantity as to prove an 
obstacle to navigation in clear weather or in known waters. 
On the 12th August we still sailed through considerable 
fields of scattered drift-ice, consisting partly of old ice of large 
dimensions, partly of very rotten year’s ice. It formed, how¬ 
ever, no serious obstacle to our advance, and nearer the shore 
we would probably have had quite open water, but of course it 
was not advisable to go too near land in the fog and unknown 
waters, without being obliged. A large number of fish {Gadiis 
Solaris) were seen above the foot of a large block of ground ice, 
near which we lay-to for some hours. Next day we saw near one 
of the islands, where the water was very clear, the sea-bottom 
bestrewed with innumerable fish of the same species. They 
had probably perished from the same cause, which often kills 
fish in the river Ob in so great numbers that the water is in¬ 
fected, namely, from a large shoal of fish having been enclosed 
by ice in a small hole, where the water, when its surface has 
frozen, could no longer by absorption from the air replace 
the oxygen consumed, and where the fish have thus been 
literally drowned. I mention this inconsiderable find of some 
self-dead fish, because self-dead vertebrate animals, even fish, 
are found exceedingly seldom. Such finds therefore deserve to 
be noted with much greater care than, for instance, the occur¬ 
rence of animal species in the neighbourhood of places where 
they have been seen a thousand times before. During my nine 
