ARCTIC MAMMALS. The similarity of species of Arctic mammals throughout the circle of the globe is even closer than that of plants. Of land mammals there are but few, and many of these are of the same species wherever found. The polar bear (LTrsus maritimus) has the highest range. Specimens have been found upon the ice-pack north of every known land. The bear, however, is never found far from the coast, either inland or at sea. (See BEAR.) The Arctic. fox (Lulpcs lagopus) has almost as high a range, and is also found throughout the entire Arctic land area. The lemming is found in every Arctic country except Franz-Josef Land. The reindeer (Ranyifer tarandus) is found around the globe occasionally as far north as about the 79th parallel, but does not inhabit the great islands in the Arctic Ocean. The musk-ox I Ori boa moschat us) has been common within the memory of man as far west as Point Barrow; but at present its range extends from the .Nlackenzie River east across the continent to Grinnell Land, and again across the northern part of Greenland. The Arctic hare Reims glacialis) is found in the northern part of North America and of Greenland, and in these regions it reaches the highest known land. Among the other Arctic land animals are the wolverine or glutton (Gulo aretieus), which is found in North America and is reported to have existed in Greenland, though such reports lack scientific verification; the Arctic wolf; and the Eskimo dog, which is sup posed by most authorities to have been derived from the wolf by taming.
The most important of the sea-mammals are the whales and seals. The right whale (Bakrnus mystiect us) is found in the waters east of Green land. in Baffin's Bay, and again north of Bering
Strait. The range of individuals is exceedingly wide; a whale bearing a Greenland harpoon has been found in the Bering Strait region. The razor-back, the hump-back. and the bottle-nose, the grampus, the white whale, and the narwhal, are also found in the Arctic Ocean. See WHALE.
Among the pinnipeds. the most remarkable is the walrus (q.v.), which formerly inhabited the seas near the coasts of all Arctic lands, but on account of slaughter by fishermen for ivory, skin, and oil, has been driven from Europe and from the southern part of Baffin Bay. The North At lantic species (Odolgrmus rosnurrus) is still plen tiful in the Smith Sound region and in Spitzber gen and Franz-Josef Land, and the Pacific spe ties (Odolarnus obcsus) is found on the north ern coast of Alaska and Kamchatka. Among species of hair seals which inhabit the Arctic seas, the most important is the Phora fcrtida, whose range covers the Arctic regions near the shores, and ice-fields, and extends south to Labra dor, the Orkneys, the Hebrides, the gulfs of Both nia and of Finland, and along the coasts of Si beria and Alaska, into Bering Sea. The harp seal (Phoca grfrmlandica) and the bearded seal (Phoca harhatus), which is the largest of the North Atlantic pinnipeds next to the walrus, also have a circumpolar distribution. The blad der-nose or hooded seal (Systophora cristata) ranges from Greenland to Spitzbergen aml along the northern coast of Europe. For other seals, see the article SEAT..