On this island off the shore of Markland to the south-east we are told that the explorers killed a bear, conferring in consequence the name Bjarney (Bear Island) on the place in question. It has been generally assumed that this must necessarily mean a polar bear. But Karlsefni was acquainted with Norway, where the European bear still exists and must then have been common, so that one would think that a bear which was not white would equally be called a bear. I would further suggest that this would be the case even if no bears other than the polar species had previously been known to members of the expedition. But secondly, supposing a polar bear to be meant, there does not seem any violent improbability in the idea that one should be found, in the eleventh century, so far south as Nova Scotia. At a far later date, Arctic fauna had a much more southerly habitat than at present. Walrus were regularly hunted in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, as is shown by a number of passages in Hakluyt. As to the polar bear itself, its restriction to its present northerly habitat appears to be even more recent. In Labrador, as far south and inland as Eagle River Falls, Sandwich Bay, Captain Cartwright records in his diary under date July 22, 1778: ‘Numbers were in sight. I counted thirty-two white bears, and three black ones; but there were certainly many more.’ In earlier days Jacques Cartier found a polar bear between Newfoundland and the Funk Islands, while both Cabot and Corte Real found the same animal on what was probably Newfoundland, and cannot certainly have been far north of it. It may further be pointed out that white bearskins are mentioned more than once in the _Algonquin Legends of New England and Nova Scotia_, collected by C. G. Leland. As to bears on islands, whether white or black, Cartier found them on Brion Island, so there is no improbability in this feature. If a polar bear is meant, Sable Island seems a possible location for Bjarney, but in any case there are many islands off the Nova Scotian coast which would fulfil the conditions. _Furdustrands._ Until, however, the expedition reaches Keelness, we are on very uncertain ground, and it would be imprudent to insist upon any definite conclusion. We may in fact, at this stage, so far as our information hitherto has taken us, be either at the north-eastern extremity of Nova Scotia or in the vicinity of Cape Cod, according as our identification of Helluland and Markland agrees with Storm or otherwise. We may however fairly say that the choice lies between these two localities. Any other theory breaks down at the first touch of criticism.