THE ARCTIC HARE. 
395 
luxury of “such small deer” gave me the frequent 
advantage of a fresh-meat soup, which contributed no 
doubt to my comparative immunity from scurvy. I 
had only one competitor in the dispensation of this 
entremet, or rather one companion; for there was an 
abundance for both. It was a fox:—we caught and 
domesticated him late in the winter; but the scantiness 
of our resources, and of course his own, soon instructed 
him in all the antipathies of a terrier. He had only 
one fault as a rat-catcher: he -would never catch a 
second till he had eaten the first. 
At the date of these entries the Arctic hares had 
not ceased to be numerous about our harbor. They 
-were very beautiful, as white as swans’ down, with a 
crescent of black marking the ear-tips. They feed on 
the bark and catkins of the willow, and affect the 
stony sides of the wom-down rocks, where they find 
protection from the wind and snow-drifts. They do not 
burrow like our hares at home, but squat in crevices or 
under large stones. Their average w r eight is about 
nine pounds. They w r ould have entered largely into 
our diet-list but for our Esquimaux dogs, who regarded 
them with relishing appetite. Parry found the hare at 
Melville Island, in latitude 75°; hut we have traced it 
from Littleton Island as far north as 79° 08', and its 
range probably extends still farther toward the Pole. 
Its structure and habits enable it to penetrate the 
snow-crusts, and obtain food -where the reindeer and 
the musk-ox perish in consequence of the glazed cover¬ 
ing of their feeding-grounds. 
