TAKE CARE OF THE BIRDS! 687 



Both, kinds of boats are always drawn up out of the water, ex- 

 cept when in actual use, and the kayaks, like the umiaks, are 

 always stripped for the winter. 



In summer the men often make quite long excursions across 

 the country after reindeer, traveling mostly on the lakes and 

 ponds, crossing from lake to lake with, the kayak carried on one 

 arm, which, is thrust into the hole up to the elbow, with the hand 

 grasping the frame inside. The trading-parties that go east in 

 the spring start be/ore there is any open water along the shore at 

 Point Barrow, and travel along the level shore-ice with the umiak 

 lashed to a flat sled drawn by the dogs and all the men and 

 women. Tent, kayaks, and all the baggage of the party are 

 loaded into the umiak, and so they travel on till, in about two 

 days' journey from the Point, they find the open water which, has 

 come down from the great rivers. Then they land the sledges, to 

 be picked up on their return in the autumn, launch their boats, 

 and proceed on their journey by water. 



The umiaks are first launched about the middle or end of 

 April, when they are dragged on sledges out over the ice to the 

 off-shore open water for the spring whaling. They are constantly 

 in use from that time, whenever the ice will permit, till well into 

 October. The kayaks are seldom brought out till the ponds are 

 free of ice about the 1st of July but the middle of October gen- 

 erally sees all boats of both kinds laid away for the season. 







TAKE CARE OF THE BIRDS! 



By Dr. KARL RUSS. 



m 



ON" an unprejudiced view of the matter, we may well be sur- 

 prised that a barbarity so foreign to the aspiring tendencies 

 of our age as the destruction of birds should continue ; that ex- 

 hortations to protect them are still necessary ; and that active har- 

 boring and care of them are not matters of course. There are 

 special causes for the lamentable existing conditions, but a wide 

 survey is necessary to the full understanding of them. If we seek 

 for the causes of the lessening numbers of our wild birds, includ- 

 ing the finest and favorite singers, we shall find that they are 

 many and interwoven. Foremost among them are the conditions 

 of modern cultivation. When denudation is the rule in forestry, 

 and the whole growth is cut away with all the old and hollow 

 trees and those that were rich in knot-holes; when agriculture, 

 making the smallest spot of ground productive, roots out stumps 

 and hedgerows, dries up the swamps, drains the larger ponds, and 



