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Show 1868.] MR. R. BROWN ON THE MAMMALS OF GREENLAND. 331 thority on the zoology of Danish Greenland*. Herein are enumerated thirty-one species of Mammalia indigenous to the country, exclusive of Man and those which have been introduced by man's agency. Four of these species I have shown in this memoir to have been entered upon imperfect grounds, one was mistaken for another (Ovi-bos moschatus for Bos grunniens), and several are now known to be only synonyms of other species. The species of Cetacea are, as might be expected, the most obscurely described of all, and have occasioned much controversy; and more superabundance of literary acumen has been spent on these descriptions than the nature of them will allow of. Subsequently the elder Reinhardt gave some notes on the Greenland Mammalia in the 'Isis' for 1848, which, in the main, are only a reproduction of the earlier account of Fabricius; and in 1857, the present Professor Reinhardt, of Copenhagen, in the Appendix to Rink's 'Gronland'f furnished a list of the species, also following Fabricius. He has, however, entered the only species then added to the list, viz. Mus grbnlandicus of Traill J, discovered by Scoresby on the east coast in 1822, under the name of Hypudceusgronlandicus§, and attempts to make out what was the amarok of the older authors, Fabricius's Gulo luscus, the Phoca ursina, which Fabricius enters as a member of the Greenland fauna, the Trichechus manatus, & c , and with some success, though, not having visited Greenland himself, he is not so successful as he otherwise might have been. This list, as all the others, solely relates to Danish Greenland, extending from Cape Farewell (lat. 59° 49' N., long. 43° 54' W.) to Upernavik (lat. 72° 48' N., long. 55° 54' W . ) , and is valuable as expressing the state of knowledge regarding the Mammalia of Greenland in Denmark, represented by a naturalist who has paid much attention to the Arctic fauna, in the elucidation of some of the marine Mammalia of which he has so highly distinguished himself. This, as far as I am aware, is all that immediately relates to the arctic Mammals in Greenland. Various other writings have thrown much light on their general history; but it is with their special history and geographical distribution in Greenland that I have to deal. Among these memoirs, I ought not to omit mentioning the excellent paper on the Mammalia of the northern countries by Professor Malmgren ||, who ac- * In 1867, whilst staying at Claushavn, I occupied as my study a little room in the old Pastor's house, now deserted and used to accommodate, any stray wayfaring men like myself. This was said to be the " dark closet" where Fabricius wrought at his Fauna, Lexicon, and other works: it was afterwards the residence of Saabye the grandson of Egede, who also wrote on Greenland. t Gronland Geographisk og Statistisk beskrevet &c. Band ii. Tillaeg Nr. i. (Pattedyr). This appendix was also published separately,' Naturhistoriske Bidrag til en Beskrivelse af Gronland,' pp. 1-12. J Scoresby,' Journal of a Voyage to the Northern Whale fishery, &c.,' Appendix. § Prof. Eeinhardt obligingly informs m e (March 1868) that he is now quite convinced that this is a Myodes, though he only knows it from description. || " Beobachtungen und Anzeichnungen uber die Saugethierfauna Finmarkens und Spitzbergens," in Wiegmann's Archiv fiir Naturgeschichte, (Berlin,) 1864, pp. 63-97, translated from Ofversigt af Kong. Svensk. AkaA. &c. (1863) ii. pp. 127-155. |
