_Fauna and Flora._--It was long a common belief that the fauna and flora of Greenland were essentially European, a circumstance which would make it probable that Greenland has been separated by sea from America during a longer period of time than from Europe. The correctness of this hypothesis may, however, be doubted. The land mammals of Greenland are decidedly more American than European; the musk-ox, the banded lemming (_Cuniculus torquatus_), the white polar wolf, of which there seems to have been a new invasion recently round the northern part of the country to the east coast, the Eskimo and the dog--probably also the reindeer--have all come from America, while the other land mammals, the polar bear, the polar fox, the Arctic hare, the stoat (_Mustela erminea_), are perfectly circumpolar forms. The species of seals and whales are, if anything, more American than European, and so to some extent are the fishes. The bladder-nose seal (_Cystophora cristata_), for instance, may be said to be a Greenland-American species, while a Scandinavian species, such as the grey seal (_Halichoerus grypus_), appears to be very rare both in Greenland and America. Of the sixty-one species of birds breeding in Greenland, eight are European-Asiatic, four are American, and the rest circumpolar or North Atlantic and North Pacific in their distribution.[37] About 310 species of vascular plants are found, of which about forty species are American, forty-four European-Asiatic, fifteen endemic, and the rest common both to America and Europe or Asia. We thus see that the American and the European-Asiatic elements of the flora are nearly equivalent; and if the flora of Arctic North America were better known, the number of plants common to America might be still more enlarged.[38] In the south, a few goats, sheep, oxen and pigs have been introduced. The whaling industry was formerly prolific off the west coast but decayed when the right whale nearly disappeared. The white whale fishery of the Eskimo, however, continued, and sealing is important; walruses are also caught and sometimes narwhal. There are also important fisheries for cod, caplin, halibut, red fish (_Sebastes_) and _nepisak_ (_Cyclopterus lumpus_); a shark (_Somniosus microcephalus_) is taken for the oil from its liver; and sea-trout are found in the streams and small lakes of the south. On land reindeer were formerly hunted, to their practical extinction in the south, but in the districts of Godthaab, Sukkertoppen and Holstensborg there are still many reindeer. The eider-duck, guillemot and other sea-birds are in some parts valuable for food in winter, and so is the ptarmigan. Eggs of sea-birds are collected and eider-down. Valuable fur is obtained from the white and blue fox, the skin of the eider-duck and the polar bear.