SPITSBERGEN. 
343 
neighbourhood of Amsterdam Island, in the 79th parallel 
of N. latitude. Here, in Danes’ Gat, was erected the 
wooden house brought out from Norway, in which Pike, 
with his skipper, Krsemer, and six Norwegians, spent the 
whole Arctic winter from September, 1888, till May, 
1889. Not till the 16th of the last-named month was 
the Seggur freed from her frozen cradle, and enabled 
to resume the quest of x4rctic game. 
Without further comment, I will now go straight 
ahead with the following selected extracts from these 
daily journals of— 
II. A Winter in the Eightieth Degree. 
(Spitsbergen.) 
By Arnold Pike. 
Aug. 21st. —-Amsterdam Island. Shot a Sanderling 
out of a flight of three. [Skin in my possession.—A.C.] 
Aug. 2 5 th. —Smeerenberg Bay. Several Ring- 
plovers observed ; on following day a skein of two 
hundred Brents passed south, also some Grey Geese. 
Temperature during August—Air, max. 60*12°, min. 
32*0°. Sea-water—west coast, 41*22°; east coast, 36*5°; 
north coast, 38*1°. 
Sept. 2nd. —Observed what we took to be an 
immature Great Black-backed Gull (Lams marinus). 
Sept. lOtli. —Walrus (old bull) harpooned and shot. 
Stomach contained the “ speck” of a seal ( Ph. hispida). 
This is not usual, but the skipper told yarns of similar 
incidents, as well as once seeing a walrus take a fulmar 
while sitting on the water in King’s Bay. Shot a beai: 
