When Dr. Cheadle and his companion turned homewards, they found that their enemy had been in active pursuit. Along the ground they had traversed on the previous day, every trap was already demolished, and all the baits were abstracted. Dr. Cheadle at first imagined that he had at last outwitted and destroyed his enemy; but the Indian’s keener eyes discovered each of the baits which had been poisoned, lying close at hand, bitten in two and rejected, while all the others had disappeared. The baits, nevertheless, had been very carefully prepared; the strychnine being inserted into the centre of the meat by a small hole, and when frozen it was impossible to distinguish them from the harmless ones by any peculiarity of appearance. It seemed as if the animal suspected poison, and bit in two and tasted every morsel before swallowing it. The baits had purposely been made very small, so that in the ordinary course they would have been swallowed whole. That the same wolverine had followed up their path from the first, they knew perfectly well, because it was one of unusually large size, as shown by its tracks, which were readily distinguished from those of smaller animals. The distribution of Birds in the Polar Regions, is a subject on which it seems desirable to offer a few remarks, so that our readers may be able to form an accurate conception of the character and variety of the animal life peculiar to them. Of the birds of Greenland and Iceland, it may be affirmed that fully three-fourths of the species, and a still larger proportion of individuals, are more or less aquatic, and many of the remainder are only summer visitors. The largest bird that ventures far north is the _Aquila albicilla_, or fishing-eagle, which builds its eyrie on the loftiest crags of the ocean-cliffs, and feeds on salmon and trout. The _Falco Islandicus_, or gyrfalcon, though a native of Iceland, is now very rarely met with. The snowy owl inhabits the glaciers which fill the deep inland valleys of Greenland, and its range extends as far southwards as the Orkneys. Particular kinds of grouse are confined to the high latitudes; and more particularly the ptarmigan, or white grouse, which supplies a welcome addition to the scanty bill of fare of the Arctic navigators. It is found, even in the depths of winter, on Melville Island; burrowing under the snow, perhaps, for warmth, protection, and food. But it appears to be most numerous in April, when it is found in pairs; in September it collects in coveys, sometimes of as many as fifteen or twenty birds, preparatory to their southern migration. [Illustration: PTARMIGAN.] Of the _Corvidæ_, the only species which ventures beyond the Arctic Circle is the Royston crow, and that only in summer.