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Show 1868.] MR. R. BROWN ON THE MAMMALS OF GREENLAND. 357 Eskimo camping-places in the summer, and are housed in the winter. I am told that they will eat dried Arctic Salmon, if nothing better is forthcoming. It is not kept north of Holsteensborg, as it is found impossible to keep it where there are troops of savage dogs ; and it is accordingly only found about the settlements south of that, to the number of about 100.] 5. On some of the doubtful or mythical Animals of Greenland. Otto Fabricius used to spend his summers roaming about with the Eskimo, until he had learned to manage a kayak and strike a Seal with a skill which few Europeans can ever acquire. On one of these excursions he found in " Sildefjord, north of the colony of Fredrikshaab," a piece of a skull, about which the natives told him something ; and from what they related to him, and what he thought himself, he entered no less than two species in the Greenland fauna, "Trichechus manatus" (Rhy tin a gigas) and "Phoca ursina" (Callorhinus ursinus), being, apparently, not certain to which it belonged. The Greenlanders called this animal Auvekcejak, or Auikce-jak, and said it was like a Walrus and broke things easily to pieces. He was sure that the piece of skull belonged to the first of these animals; and again he repeats the same under the head of Phoca ursina; so that it is now difficult to arrive at any conclusion regarding the species of animal to which it belonged. However, I think there can be but one opinion, that neither the Sea-Bear nor the Rhytina can be entered in the Greenland fauna on such fragmentary evidence. The confused stories of the Greenlanders can give the critic no great hold. This piece of cranium is not now to be found in Fabricius's M u seum. In a posthumous zoological manuscript, entitled " Zoolo-giske Samlinger," written in Copenhagen during the period between 1808 and 1814, and now preserved in the Royal Library, he has again spoken about the Auvekcejak (Bd. ii. p. 298, no. 286), and has thus written about the skull he found in Greenland : - " The head which I found was full of holes, and looked like that of a Walrus (no. 82), without tusks." There were many long small teeth in the head *; and if such was the case, we cannot be wrong in saying that the animal was not a Mammal. W e have, however, no right, when we remember the clear comprehensive style in which Fabricius wrote regarding the Greenland fauna, however much we may be inclined, to say that the whole was erroneous. It is unfortunate that when Fabricius referred his Auvekcejak to the Sea-cow of Steller, he was not acquainted with that animal, and did not know of the horn-plates; for, if he had, it is impossible that he could have found a resemblance to it in the Auvekcejak. His words regarding it are clear enough, so far as they g o - " Rarissimum animal in mari Grcenlandico, cujus solum cranium ex parte conservatum commune cum sequenti specie ab incolis dictum nomine Auvekse- * Reinhardt. loc. cit. p. 6, |