wind, which they attributed, with great probability, to the smell of the ships being thus more extensively communicated over the island.  One or two of these poor creatures had been found in the traps with their tongues almost bitten in two.  The traps made use of for catching these beautiful little animals were formed of a small cask, having a sliding door like that of a common mouse-trap, and were baited with oiled meat or blubber.  The whole number caught during the winter was between eighty and ninety, of which more than seventy were taken before the end of December.  In a single trap of Captain Lyon’s, no less than fifteen were caught in the course of four hours, on the night of the 25th of November; and the people engaged in watching the trap remarked, that no sooner had one of these animals been taken out, and they themselves retired a few yards, than another entered it.  So stupid, indeed, are they in this respect, that, in several instances, those which had escaped from the ships entered, and were recaught in the same traps as before.

Jan. 14.—­An ermine, of which the tracks had been traced the preceding day up the Hecla’s stern, and even on board her, Captain Lyon to-day succeeded in catching in a trap.  This beautiful creature was entirely white, except a black brush to its tail, and a slight tinge of the usual sulphur or straw colour on the root of the tail, and also on the fore part of the fore legs.  The little animal being put into a convenient cage, seemed soon to feel himself perfectly at home, eating, drinking, and sleeping without any apparent apprehension, but evincing a very decided determination to resent a too near approach to the wires of his new habitation.

Jan. 18.—­At a late hour this evening the stovepipe of my cabin caught fire, which gave us a momentary alarm, but, buckets and water being at hand, it was soon extinguished.  This accident was occasioned by a quantity of soot collected in the stovepipe, and yet was not altogether to be attributed to neglect in the persons appointed to sweep the whole of them twice a week.  As the cause of it is such as is not likely to be anticipated by persons living in temperate climates, and as the knowledge of it may be serviceable to somebody destined for a cold one, I shall here explain it.  The smoke of coals contains a certain quantity of water in the state of vapour.  This, in temperate climates, and, indeed, till the thermometer falls to about 10 deg. below zero, is carried up the chimney and principally diffused in the atmosphere.  When the cold becomes more intense, however, this is no longer the case; for the vapour is then condensed into water before it can escape from the stovepipes, within which a mass of ice is, in consequence, very speedily formed.[*] The vapour thus arrested must necessarily also detain a quantity of soot, which, being subsequently enclosed in the ice as the latter accumulates, the brush generally used to clean the pipes cannot bring it away.