The deer feed in a peculiar manner. Once a pit has been sunk in the snow and the moss at the bottom is browsed down, the creatures do not attempt to enlarge the place, but scramble out again, only to dig a fresh hole and sink shoulder high in it at a little distance, and begin feeding afresh. The herd is always dogged by a pack of watchful wolves, ever on the qui vive to attack; but the leaders’ vigilance never slackens, and battle breaks out in the wild at the first movement of aggression. There are one or two particularly interesting facts, astronomical and otherwise, which account for the extraordinary physical phenomena and conditions of life in the polar regions. To begin with the seasons. The “Arctic” properly so called is geographically defined by that circle of latitude where the sun on midwinter day does not rise, and where on midsummer day it does not set. In Arctic countries the sun is never more than 23½ degrees above the horizon, and their intense cold is due, in summer, to the sharp obliquity of his rays, and in winter, to his entire absence. In the latitude of Blacklead Island, on December 25th, the whole orb of the sun is not visible, only the upper section shows above the horizon (unless mist or snow overcast the heavens) for a brief ten minutes at midday. On May 18th, conversely, the sun has been noted as shining for eighteen hours, the remaining six out of the twenty-four being a bright twilight, scarcely distinguishable from day. The whole year round there is little to be seen but rocks and snow. No tilling, sowing, harvesting, mark the progress of the seasons or call man to the pursuits which have brought all civilisation in their train in milder climes. These seasons (which depend, of course, upon the position of the earth in its orbit round the sun, and upon the inclination of the polar axis to the plane of the ecliptic giving a six month’s day and six month’s night at the poles), are markedly defined in Baffin Land. But far more distinctly so on shore than at sea, where unbroken ice may reign supreme throughout the greater part of the twelve-month. Winter sets in on the southern coast about the end of September; farther north a week or two earlier. By this date the hills are getting their snow caps, which extend downwards every day, and a thin sheet of ice appears upon the sea at night. A rim of ice along the shore marks the rise and fall of the tide. Frequent snowstorms now set in, and the ice at sea thickens and strengthens, until by November it extends as far as the eye can rove. This ice, however, is not stout or welded enough to bear sleds, except in the fiords and smaller bays, until nearly Christmas time. The sea freezes when the temperature of the air falls to about 15° F., and the whole surface of the water becomes covered with a mass of ice spicules known to polar sailors as Bay Ice, from its forming first in the bays of the coast. Presently