The vast multitudes of animated beings which people the Polar Seas form a remarkable contrast to the nakedness of their bleak and desolate shores. The colder surface-waters almost perpetually exposed to a chilly air, and frequently covered, even in summer, with floating ice, are indeed unfavorable to the development of organic life; but this adverse influence is modified by the higher temperature which constantly prevails at a greater depth; for, contrary to what takes place in the equatorial seas, we find in the Polar Ocean an increase of temperature from the surface downward, in consequence of the warmer under-currents, flowing from the south northward, and passing beneath the cold waters of the superficial Arctic current. Thus the severity of the Polar winter remains unfelt at a greater depth of the sea, where myriads of creatures find a secure retreat against the frost, and whence they emerge during the long summer’s day, either to line the shores or to ascend the broad rivers of the Arctic world. Between the parallels of 74° and 80° Scoresby observed that the color of the Greenland sea varies from the purest ultramarine to olive green, and from crystalline transparency to striking opacity—appearances which are not transitory, but permanent. This green semi-opaque water, whose position varies with the currents, often forming isolated stripes, and sometimes spreading over two or three degrees of latitude, mainly owes its singular aspect to small medusÆ and nudibranchiate molluscs. It is calculated to form one-fourth part of the surface of the sea between the above-mentioned parallels, so that many thousands of square miles are absolutely teeming with life. On the coast of Greenland, where the waters are so exceedingly clear that the bottom and every object upon it are plainly visible even at a depth of eighty fathoms, the ground is seen covered with gigantic tangles, which, together with the animal world circulating among their fronds, remind the spectator of the coral-reefs of the tropical ocean. Nullipores, mussels, alcyonians, sertularians, ascidians, and a variety of other sessile animals, incrust every stone or fill every hollow or crevice of the rocky ground. A dead seal or fish thrown into the sea is soon converted into a skeleton by the myriads of small crustaceans which infest these northern waters, and, like the ants in the equatorial forests, perform the part of scavengers of the deep. Of these sea-mammalians, the most important to civilized man is undoubtedly the Greenland whale (BalÆna mysticetus), or smooth-back, thus called from its having no dorsal fin. Formerly these whales were harpooned in considerable numbers in the Icelandic waters, or in the fiords of Spitzbergen and Danish Greenland; then Davis’s Straits became the favorite fishing-grounds; and more recently the inlets and various channels to the east of Baffin’s Bay have been invaded; while, on the opposite side of America, several hundreds of whalers penetrate every year through Bering’s Straits into the icy sea beyond, where previously they lived and multiplied, unmolested except by the Esquimaux. 34. THE WHALE. More fortunate than the smooth-back, the rorquals, or fin-whales (BalÆnoptera boops, musculus, physalis, and rostratus), still remain in their ancient seats, from which they are not likely to be dislodged, as the agility of their movements makes their capture more difficult and dangerous; while at the same time the small quantity of their fat and the shortness of their baleen render it far less remunerative. They are of a more slender form of body, and with a more pointed muzzle than the Greenland whale; and while the latter attains a length of only sixty feet, the BalÆnoptera boops grows to the vast length of 100 feet and more. There is also a difference in their food, for the Greenland whale chiefly feeds upon the minute animals that crowd the olive-colored waters above described, or on the hosts of little pteropods that are found in many parts of the Arctic seas, while the rorquals frequently accompany the herring-shoals, and carry death and destruction into their ranks. The seas of Novaja Zemlya, Spitzbergen, and Greenland are the domain of the narwhal, or sea-unicorn, a cetacean quite as strange, but not so fabulous as the terrestrial animal which figures in the arms of England. The use of the 35. THE NARWHAL. Among the numerous dolphins which people the Arctic and Subarctic seas, the beluga (Delphinus leucas), improperly called the white whale, is one of the most interesting. When young it has a brown color, which gradually changes into a perfect white. It attains a length of from twelve to twenty feet, has no dorsal fin, a strong tail three feet broad, and a round head with a broad truncated snout. Beyond 56° of latitude it is frequently seen in large shoals, particularly near the estuaries of the large Siberian and North American rivers, which it often ascends to a considerable distance in pursuit of the salmon. A troop of belugas diving out of the dark waves of the Arctic Sea is said to afford a magnificent spectacle. Their white color appears dazzling, from the contrast of the sombre background, as they dart about with arrow-like velocity. The black dolphin (Globicephalus globiceps) is likewise very common in the Arctic seas, both beyond Bering’s Straits and between Greenland and Spitzbergen, whence it frequently makes excursions to the south. It grows to the length of twenty-four feet, and is about ten feet in circumference. The skin, like that of the dolphin tribe in general, is smooth, resembling oiled silk; the color a bluish-black on the back, and generally whitish on the belly; the blubber is three or four inches thick. The full-grown have generally twenty-two or twenty-four teeth in each jaw; and when the mouth is shut, the teeth lock between one another, like the teeth of a trap. The dorsal fin is about fifteen inches high, the tail five feet broad; the pectoral fins are as many, long and comparatively narrow; so that, armed with such excellent paddles, the black dolphin is inferior to none of his relatives in swiftness. Of an eminently social disposition, these dolphins sometimes congregate in herds of many hundreds, under the guidance of several old experienced The ferocious orc, or grampus (Delphinus orca), is the tiger of the Arctic seas. Black above, white beneath, it is distinguished by its large dorsal fin, which curves backward toward the tail, and rises to the height of two feet or more. Measuring no less than twenty-five feet in length and twelve or thirteen in girth, of a courage equal to its strength, and armed with formidable teeth, thirty in each jaw, the grampus is the dread of the seals, whom it overtakes in spite of their rapid flight; and the whale himself would consider it as his most formidable enemy, were it not for the persecutions of man. The grampus generally ploughs the seas in small troops of four or five, following each other in close single file, and alternately disappearing and rising so as to resemble the undulatory motions of one large serpentiform animal. The family of the seals has also numerous and mighty representatives in the Arctic waters. In the sea of Bering we meet with the formidable sea-lion and the valuable sea-bear, while the harp-seal, the bearded seal, and the hispid seals (Phoca groenlandica, barbata, hispida), spreading from the Parry Islands to Novaja Zemlya, yield the tribute of their flesh to numerous wild tribes, and that of their skins to the European hunter. Few Arctic animals are more valuable to man, or more frequently mentioned in Polar voyages than the walrus or morse (Trichechus rosmarus), which, though allied to the seals, differs greatly from them by the development of the canines of the upper jaw, which form two enormous tusks projecting downward to the length of two feet. The morse is one of the largest quadrupeds existing, as it attains a length of twenty feet, and a weight of from fifteen hundred to two thousand pounds. In uncouthness of form it surpasses even the ungainly hippopotamus. It has a small head with a remarkably thick upper lip, covered with large pellucid whiskers or bristles; the neck is thick and short; the naked gray or red-brown skin hangs loosely on the ponderous and elongated trunk; and the short feet terminate in broad fin-like paddles, resembling large 36. WALRUSES ON THE ICE. Gregarious, like the seals and many of the dolphins, the walruses love to lie on the ice or on the sand-banks, closely huddled together. On the spot where Timorous and almost helpless on land, where, in spite of its formidable tusks, it falls an easy prey to the attacks of man, the walrus evinces a greater degree of courage in the water, where it is able to make a better use of the strength and weapons bestowed upon it by nature. Many instances are known where walruses, which never attack but when provoked, have turned upon their assailants, or have even assembled from a distance to assist a wounded comrade. Like the seals, the walrus is easily tamed, and of a most affectionate temper. This was shown in a remarkable manner by a young walrus brought alive from Archangel to St. Petersburg in 1829. Its keeper, Madame Dennebecq, having tended it with the greatest care, the grateful animal expressed its pleasure whenever she came near it by an affectionate grunt. It not only followed her with its eyes, but was never happier than when allowed to lay its head in her lap. The tenderness was reciprocal, and Madame Dennebecq used to talk of her walrus with the same warmth of affection as if it had been a pet lapdog. That parental love should be highly developed in animals thus susceptible of friendship may easily be imagined. Mr. Lamont, an English gentleman whom the love of sport led a few years since to Spitzbergen, relates the case of a wounded walrus who held a very young calf under her right arm. Whenever the harpoon was raised against it, the mother carefully shielded it with her own body. The countenance of this poor animal was never to be forgotten: that of the calf expressive of abject terror, and yet of such a boundless confidence in its mother’s power of protecting it, as it swam along under her wing, and the old cow’s face showing such reckless defiance for all that could be done to herself, and yet such terrible anxiety as to the safety of her calf. This parental affection is shamefully misused by man, for it is a common artifice of the walrus-hunters to catch a young animal and make it grunt, in order to attract a herd. The walrus is confined to the coasts of the Arctic regions, unless when drift-ice, or some other accident, carries it away into the open sea. Its chief resorts are Spitzbergen, Nova Zembla, North Greenland, the shores of Hudson’s and Baffin’s bays; and on the opposite side of the Polar Ocean, the coasts of Bering’s Sea, and to the north of Bering’s Straits, the American and Asiatic shores from Point Barrow to Cape North. It has nowhere been found on the coasts of Siberia from the mouth of the Jenisei to the last-mentioned promontory, and on those of America from Point Barrow to Lancaster Sound; so that it inhabits two distinct regions, separated from each other by vast extents of coast. Its food seems to consist principally of marine plants and shell-fish, though Scoresby relates that he found the remains of fishes, or even of seals, in its stomach. As the Polar bear is frequently found above a hundred miles from the nearest land, upon loose ice steadily drifting into the sea, it seems but fair to assign Many instances have been observed of the peculiar sagacity of the Polar bear. Scoresby relates that the captain of a whaler, being anxious to procure a bear without wounding the skin, made trial of the stratagem of laying the noose of a rope in the snow, and placing a piece of kreng, or whale’s carcass, within it. A bear, ranging the neighboring ice, was soon enticed to the spot. Approaching the bait, he seized it in his mouth; but his foot, at the same moment, by a jerk of the rope, being entangled in the noose, he pushed it off with the adjoining paw, and deliberately retired. After having eaten the piece he carried away with him, he returned. The noose, with another piece of kreng, being then replaced, he pushed the rope aside, and again walked triumphantly off with the kreng. A third time the noose was laid, and this time the rope was buried in the snow, and the bait laid in a deep hole dug in the centre. But Bruin, after snuffing about the place for a few minutes, scraped the snow away with his paw, threw the rope aside, and escaped unhurt with his prize. The she-bear is taught by a wonderful instinct to shelter her young under the snow. Towards the month of December she retreats to the side of a rock, where, by dint of scraping and allowing the snow to fall upon her, she forms a cell in which to reside during the winter. There is no fear that she should be stifled for want of air, for the warmth of her breath always keeps a small passage open, and the snow, instead of forming a thick uniform sheet, is broken by a little hole, round which is collected a mass of glittering hoar-frost, caused by the congelation of the breath. Within this strange nursery she produces her young, and remains with them beneath the snow until the month of March, when she emerges into the open air with her baby bears. As the time passes on, the breath of the family, together with the warmth exhaled from their 37. HOME OF THE POLAR BEAR. The Polar bear is armed with formidable weapons, and a proportionate power to use them. His claws are two inches in length, and his canine teeth, exclusive of the part in the jaw, about an inch and a half. Thus the hoards of provisions which are frequently deposited by Arctic voyagers to provide for some future want, have no greater enemy than the Polar bear. “The final cache,” says Kane, “which I relied so much upon, was entirely destroyed. It had been built with extreme care, of rocks which had been assembled by very heavy labor, and adjusted with much aid, often, from capstan-bars as levers. 38. THE GULL. Numbers of sea-birds are found breeding along the Arctic shores as far as man has hitherto penetrated; some even keep the sea in the high latitudes all the winter, wherever open water exists. On the most northern rocks the razorbill rears its young, and the fulmar and Ross’s gull have been seen in lanes of water beyond 82° lat. As the sun gains in power, enormous troops of puffins, looms, dovekies, rotges, skuas, burgermasters, Sabine’s gulls, kittiwakes, ivory gulls, and Arctic terns, return to the north. There they enjoy the long summer day, and revel in the abundance of the fish-teeming waters, bringing life and animation into solitudes seldom or perhaps never disturbed by the presence of man, and mingling their wild screams with the hoarse-resounding surge or the howling of the storm. In many localities they breed in such abundance, that it may be said, almost without exaggeration, that they darken the sun when they fly, and hide the waters when they swim. |