Page:The Zoologist, 3rd series, vol 2 (1878).djvu/401

Rh all the eiders shot on this trip belonged to this species. They usually flew in flocks, in a course parallel with 'the coast. The six or eight examples we procured were males. I observed one flock containing more than fifty individuals; the bright-coloured males predominated, and the remainder were in all probability immature birds of the same sex. Mr. Fencker assured me that none of this species nested in the vicinity of Godhavn, some small islands in Disco Fiord being the nearest breeding place with which he was acquainted. The natives do not discriminate between the females of the two species of Eider Ducks, consequently well- authenticated eggs of the King Eider are difficult to procure from Greenland. On a small lake, not far from Godhavn, a few Red- necked Phalaropes were breeding. This list about exhausts the number of species of birds that 1 observed at the island of Disco.

Englishman's Bay, just beyond the harbour of Godhavn, is an excellent locality for the plant-collector. We visited that spot on several occasions: a bed of Mertensia maritima in full bloom, growing on the beach, was very attractive ; Archangelica officinalis grew there abundantly; at the roots of a fern a small snail, Vitrina angelica var. pellucida, was rather common. The only drawbacks to our enjoyment on shore were the attacks of mosquitoes, large striped insects, which alighted on one without any humming or note of warning.

At Godhavn we obtained some twenty-four dogs for sledging purposes. The dog of the Eskimos is undoubtedly a semi- domesticated wolf;* and in all probability accompanied that people from America in their migration to Greenland. In the Danish settlements some of these animals show traces of having been crossed with Newfoundland or Labrador dogs; but the genuine wolf-type largely predominates. As I was destined in the future to become better acquainted with these valuable assistants, when toiling along with them over the rugged floes of the far north, I shall defer giving an account of them until a later period of the vovage.

On July 15th we left Godhavn, and proceeded to the settlement of Rilenbenk, likewise the name of the district which occupies both sides of the Waigatt Strait. The settlement of Ritenbenk contains a population of about one hundred souls. On our passage

Dr. Robert Brown considers the progenitor of the Arctic Dog to have been Canis occidentalis var. tjriseo-alba (Proc. Zool. Soc, May, 1868).