here resembling the life which prevails on a Spitzbergen
fowl-island. Finally, it may be mentioned that Lieutenant Nordquist
found under stones and pieces of drift-wood a few insects, among
them a beetle (a _staphylinid_). Dr. Stuxberg afterwards found a
specimen of the same insect species at Cape Chelyuskin itself. No
beetle is found on Spitzbergen, though the greater portion of that
group of islands is, in respect of climate, soil, and vegetation,
much better favoured than the region now in question. This seems to
me to show that the insect fauna of Spitzbergen, exceedingly
inconsiderable and limited in numbers as it is, has migrated thither
in comparatively recent times, and in how high a degree the
migration of beetles is rendered difficult by their inability to
pass broad expanses of water.

[Illustration: THE VEGA AND LENA MOORED TO AN ICE-FLOE. On the morning
of the 12th August, 1878. (After a drawing by O. Nordquist.) ]

By afternoon the air had again cleared somewhat, so that we could
sail on. A piece of ice was seen here and there, and at night the
ice increased for a little to an unpleasant extent. Now, however, it
did not occur in such quantity as to prove an obstacle to navigation
in clear weather or in known waters.

On the 12th August we still sailed through considerable fields of
scattered drift-ice, consisting partly of old ice of large
dimensions, partly of very rotten year's ice. It formed, however, no
serious obstacle to our advance, and nearer the shore we would
probably have had quite open water, but of course it was not
advisable to go too near land in the fog and unknown waters, without
being obliged. A large number of fish (_Gadus polaris_) were seen
above the foot of a large block of ground ice, near which we lay-to
for some hours. Next day we saw near one of the islands, where the
water was very clear, the sea-bottom bestrewed with innumerable fish
of the same species. They had probably perished from the same cause,
which often kills fish in the river Ob in so great numbers that the
water is infected, namely, from a large shoal of fish having been
enclosed by ice in a small hole, where the water, when its surface
has frozen, could no longer by absorption from the air replace the
oxygen consumed, and where the fish have thus been literally
drowned. I mention this inconsiderable _find_ of some self-dead
fish, because self-dead vertebrate animals, even fish, are found
exceedingly seldom. Suc