Page:Polar Exploration - Bruce - 1911.djvu/171

Rh One of the characteristics of the Arctic, like the Antarctic, marine fauna is the enormous number of individuals of certain species, specially some of the amphipods, copepods, and echinoderms. Two species of amphipods (Anonyx nugax and Onissimus edwardsii) swarm in such quantities in Arctic seas that the carcase of a large bird will be entirely cleared of soft parts by them, and a well-cleaned skeleton is left in twenty-four hours. Such a tough morsel as a bear's skull, if lowered into water of 10 or 20 fathoms, will be beautifully cleaned in the matter of a few days. Naturalists have often resorted to this method to help them in their work.

In a depth of 197 fathoms at the entrance of Ice Fiord, Spitsbergen, the Prince of Monaco obtained in a trap no less than forty pounds of large, red prawns (Pandalus borealis), altogether 1,775 specimens; not only were these prawns interesting zoologically, but they were found to be an excellently delicate food, and were used on board for that purpose. A sea-urchin (Strongylocentrotus droebachiensis) is enomously plentiful, and so are some species of brittle-stars. The water teems with pteropods, especially Clio borealis, the food of the Greenland whale, and arrow-worms (Sagitta, with their transparent houses. In the Barents Sea I have gathered a pound or more of small