t (1864). ]

_Groenlands_ or _Jan-Mayen-saelen_, the Greenland seal (_Phoca
Groenlandica_ Muller), which at Jan Mayen gives occasion to so
profitable a fishing, also is of general occurrence among the
drift-ice in the Munnan and Kara seas.

_Snadden_, the rough or bristled seal (_Phoca hispida_, Erxl.) is
also common on the coast. These animals in particular are seen to
lie, each at its hole, on the ice of fjords, which has not been
broken up. It also many times follows with curiosity in the wake of
a vessel for long distances, and can then be easily shot, because it
is often so fat that, unlike the two other kinds of seals, it does
not sink when it has been shot dead in the water.

_Klapmytsen_, the bladdernose seal, (_Cystophora cristata_, Erxl.)
the walrus-hunters say they have never seen on Novaya Zemlya, but it
is stated to occur yearly in pretty large numbers among the ice
W.S.W. of South Cape on Spitzbergen. Only once during our many
voyages in the Polar Sea has a _Klapmyts_ been seen, viz, a young
one that was killed in 1858 in the neighbourhood of Bear Island.

Of the various species of whales, the narwhal, distinguished by its
long and valuable horn projecting in the longitudinal direction of
the body from the upper jaw, now occurs so seldom on the coast of
Novaya Zemlya that it has never been seen there by the Norwegian
walrus-hunters. It is more common at Hope Island, and Witsen states
(p. 903) that large herds of narwhals have been seen between
Spitzbergen and Novaya Zemlya.

[Illustration: THE BEARDED SEAL. Swedish, Storsal (_Phoca barbata_,
Fabr.) THE ROUGH SEAL. Swedish, Snadd. (_Phoca hispida_, Erxl.) ]

The white whale or beluga, of equal size with the narwhal, on the
other hand, occurs in large shoals on the coasts of Spitzbergen and
Novaya Zemlya, especially near the mouths of fresh-water streams.
These animals were formerly captured, but not with any great
success, by means of a peculiar sort of harpoon, called by the
hunters "skottel." Now they are caught with nets of extraordinary
size and strength, which are laid out from the shore at places which
the white whales are wont to frequent. In this way there were taken
in the year 1871, when the fishing appears to have been most
productive, by vessels belonging to Tromsoe alone, 2,167 white
whales. Their value was estimated at fifty-four Scandinavian crowns
each (about 3_l_.). The fishing, though tempting, is yet very
uncertain; it sometimes f