n winter they acquire that colored fur. In opposition
to the opinions of some naturalists, the doctor held that this change
was not due to the lowering of the temperature, since it took place
before October; hence it was not due to any physical cause, but rather
providential foresight, to secure these animals against the severity
of an arctic winter.

Often, too, they saw sea-cows and sea-dogs, animals included under the
name of seals; all the hunters were specially recommended to shoot
them, as much for their skins as for their fat, which was very good
fuel. Besides, their liver made a very good article of food; they
could be counted by hundreds, and two or three miles north of the ship
the ice was continually perforated by these huge animals; only they
avoided the hunter with remarkable instinct, and many were wounded who
easily escaped by diving under the ice.

[Illustration]

Still, on the 19th, Simpson succeeded in getting one four hundred
yards distant from the ship; he had taken the precaution to close its
hole in the ice, so that it could not escape from its pursuers. He
fought for a long time, and died only after receiving many bullets. He
was nine feet long; his bull-dog head, the sixteen teeth in his jaw,
his large pectoral fins shaped like little wings, his little tail with
another pair of fins, made him an excellent specimen. The doctor
wished to preserve his head for his collection of natural history, and
his skin for future contingences, hence he prepared both by a rapid
and economical process. He plunged the body in the hole, and thousands
of little prawns removed the flesh in small pieces; at the end of half
a day the work was half finished, and the most skilful of the
honorable corporation of tanners at Liverpool could not have done
better.

When the sun had passed the autumn equinox, that is to say, September
23d, the winter fairly begins in the arctic regions. The sun, having
gradually sunk to the horizon, disappeared at last, October 23d,
lighting up merely the tops of the mountains with its oblique rays.
The doctor gave it his last farewell. He could not see it again till
the month of February.

Still the darkness was not complete during this long absence of the
sun; the moon did its best to replace it; the stars were exceedingly
brilliant, the auroras were very frequent, and the refractions
peculiar to the snowy horizons; besides, the sun at the time of its
greatest southern declension, Dec