dens of Europe, in which the Polar bear is seldom
wanting. The capture is facilitated by the circumstance that the
young bears seldom leave their mother when she is killed.

Along with the reindeer and the bear there are found in the regions
now in question only two other land-mammalia, the mountain fox
(_Vulpes lagopus_ L.) and the lemming (_Myodes obensis_ Brants).[74]
The fox is rather common both on Spitzbergen and Novaya Zemlya. Its
abode sometimes consists of a number of passages excavated in the
ground and connected together, with several openings. Such a nest I
saw on Wahlberg's Island in Hinloopen Strait on the summit of a
fowl-fell; it was abundantly provided with a stock of half-rotten
guillemots, concealed in the passages. The old foxes were not
visible while we were there, but several young ones, some black,
some variegated red and white, ran hither and thither from out the
openings and played with supple movements in the neighbourhood of
the nest. A similar nest also, with young that ran between its
openings, played and hunted each other, I have seen on the north
shore of Matotschkin Schar, and uninhabited fox-holes and passages
at several places on the west coast of Novaya Zemlya, commonly in
the tops of dry sandy knolls.

The lemming is not found on Spitzbergen, but must at certain seasons
occur in incredible numbers on Novaya Zemlya. For at the
commencement of summer, when the snow has recently melted away,
there are to be seen, everywhere in the level fertile places in the
very close grass of the meadows, footpaths about an inch and a half
deep, which have been formed during winter by the trampling of these
small animals, under the snow, in the bed of grass or lichens which
lies immediately above the frozen ground. They have in this way
united with each other the dwellings they had excavated in the
ground, and constructed for themselves convenient ways, well
protected against the severe cold of winter, to their fodder-places.
Thousands and thousands of animals must be required in order to
carry out this work even over a small area, and wonderfully keen
must their sense of locality be, if, as seems probable, they can
find their way with certainty in the endless labyrinth they have
thus formed. During the snow-melting season these passages form
channels for running off the water, small indeed, but everywhere to
be met with, and contributing in a considerable degree to the drying
of the ground. The gro