The
fish were transported in a dog sledge to the vessel, where part of
them was placed in spirits for the zoologists and the rest fried,
not without a protest from our old cook, who thought that the black
slimy fish looked remarkably nasty and ugly. But the Chukches were
right it was a veritable delicacy, in taste somewhat resembling eel,
but finer and more fleshy. These fish were besides as tough to kill
as eels, for after lying an hour and a half in the air they swam, if
replaced in the water, about as fast as before. How this species of
fish passes the winter is still more enigmatical than the winter
life of the insects. For the lagoon has no outlet and appears to
freeze completely to the bottom. The mass of water which was found
in autumn in the lagoon therefore still lay there as an unmelted
layer of ice not yet broken up, which was covered with a stratum of
flood water several feet deep, by which the neighbouring grassy
plains were inundated. It was in this flood water that the fishing
took place.

After our return home the Yinretlen fish was examined by Professor F.A.
SMITT in Stockholm, who stated, in an address which he gave on it before
the Swedish Academy of Sciences, that it belongs to a new species to
which Professor Smitt gave the name _Dallia delicatissima_. A closely
allied form occurs in Alaska, and has been named _Dallia pectoralis_,
Bean. These fishes are besides nearly allied to the dog-fish (_Umbra
Krameri_, Fitzing), which is found in the Neusidler and Platten Lakes,
and in grottos and other water-filled subterranean cavities in southern
Europe. It is remarkable that the European species are considered
uneatable, and even regarded with such loathing that the fishermen throw
them away as soon as caught because they consider them poisonous, and
fear that their other fish would be destroyed by contact with it. They
also consider it an affront if one asks them for dog-fish.[268] If we
had known thus we should not now have been able to certify that _Dallia
delicatissima_, SMITT, truly deserves its name.

[Illustration: DOG FISH FROM THE CHUKCH PENINSULA. _Dallia
delicatissima_, Smitt. Half the natural size. ]

In the beginning of July the ground became free of snow, and we
could now form an idea of how the region looked in summer in which
we had passed the winter. It was not just attractive. Far away in
the south the land rose with terrace-formed escarpments to a hill,
called by us Table Mount, whi