ment I saw these tracts, I had always hoped
to discover, as my eyes roamed over the lonely plains of ice. And
now it came when I was least thinking of it. I was out for a little
walk on the ice by the ship, and as I was sitting down by a hummock
my eyes wandered northward and lit on a bird hovering over the great
pressure-mound away to the northwest. At first I took it to be a
kittiwake, but soon discovered it rather resembled the skua by its
swift flight, sharp wings, and pointed tail. When I had got my gun,
there were two of them together flying round and round the ship. I
now got a closer view of them, and discovered that they were too
light colored to be skuas. They were by no means shy, but continued
flying about close to the ship. On going after them on the ice I soon
shot one of them, and was not a little surprised, on picking it up,
to find it was a little bird about the size of a snipe; the mottled
back, too, reminded me also of that bird. Soon after this I shot the
other. Later in the day there came another, which was also shot. On
picking this one up I found it was not quite dead, and it vomited up
a couple of large shrimps, which it must have caught in some channel
or other. All three were young birds, about 12 inches in length,
with dark mottled gray plumage on the back and wings; the breast and
under side white, with a scarcely perceptible tinge of orange-red,
and round the neck a dark ring sprinkled with gray." At a somewhat
later age this mottled plumage disappears; they then become blue on
the back, with a black ring round the neck, while the breast assumes
a delicate pink hue. Some few days afterwards (August 6th and 8th)
some more of these birds were shot, making eight specimens in all.

While time was passing on, the plan I had been revolving in my mind
during the winter was ever uppermost in my thoughts--the plan, that
is to say, of exploring the unknown sea apart from the track in which
the Fram was drifting. I kept an anxious eye upon the dogs, for fear
anything should happen to them, and also to see that they continued
in good condition, for all my hopes centred in them. Several of them,
indeed, had been bitten to death, and two had been killed by bears;
but there were still twenty-six remaining, and as a set-off against
our losses we had the puppies, eight of which had been permitted
to live. As spring advanced they were allowed to roam the deck,
but on May 5th their world was considerably exten