Lieutenant Beechey, on his return from a hunting excursion at midnight on the 26th, reported that the ice along shore in that direction appeared in a more forward state of dissolution than near Winter Harbour, there being almost water enough in some places to allow a boat to pass, with several large cracks in the ice extending from the land some distance to seaward.  The deep had now become much more wild near the tents, and it was therefore necessary to shift the ground a little.  Lieutenant Beechey succeeded in killing one of these animals, by lying down quietly, and imitating the voice of a fawn, when the deer immediately came up to him within gunshot.  The horns of the deer killed at this season, as Mr. Fisher remarks, were “covered with a soft skin having a downy pile or hair upon it; the horns themselves were soft, and at the tips flexible and easily broken.”  The foxes, of which they saw several, “had a black spot or patch on each side of the hind-quarters or hams.”

On the 29th, one of the men, in returning on board from the daily occupation of gathering sorrel, found in a hole upon the ice a small fish, which appeared to be of the whiting species; and, on going to examine the place where it was picked up, Mr. Edwards and myself found two others exactly similar.  As there was as yet no communication between the sea and the upper surface of the ice sufficiently large to admit these fish, it became a matter of question in what manner they had got into the situation in which we found them.  It appeared most likely that they were frozen on the surface of the water at the beginning of winter, when the frost first commenced, and perhaps, therefore, had been floating there dead.  We remarked that, whenever any hard substance is laid upon the ice in small quantities, it soon makes a deep hole for itself, by the heat it absorbs and radiates, by which the ice around it is melted.  There were at this time upon the ice innumerable holes of this kind, some forming small, and others large pools of water; and in every one of these, without exception, some extraneous substance, such as seaweed, sand, and not unfrequently a number of small putrid shrimps were found.  In one of these holes the fish alluded to were found.  It was curious to see how directly contrary was the effect produced upon the ice by a quantity of straw which was put out upon it in the early part of May, and which, by preventing the access of warmth, had now become raised above the general surface more than two feet; affording a strong practical example of the principle on which straw is made use of in ice-houses, and, what was at that time of more importance to us, a proof, how much the upper surface of the ice had been insensibly wasted by dissolution.