AUK-CATCHING. 391 



secure from their enemy, the foxes, which prowl 

 round in great numbers, ever watching for a meal. 



Having told Kalutunah that I wanted to accom- 

 pany him and help him at auk-catching, that worthy 

 individual came to my tent early one morning, much 

 rejoiced that the Nalegaksoak had so favored him, and, 

 bright and early, hurried me to the hill-side. The 

 birds were more noisy than usual, for they had just 

 returned in immense swarms from the sea, where they 

 had been getting their breakfast. 1 Kalutunah carried 

 a small net, made of light strings of seal-skin knitted 

 together very ingeniously. The staff by which it 

 was held was about ten feet long. After clambering 

 over the rough, sharp stones, we arrived at length 

 about half-way up to the base of the cliffs, where 

 Kalutunah crouched behind a rock and invited me to 

 follow his example. I observed that the birds were 

 nearly all in flight, and were, with rare exceptions, 

 the males. The length of the slope on which they 

 were congregated w r as about a mile, and a constant 

 stream of birds w T as rushing over it, but a few feet 

 above the stones ; and, after making in their rapid 

 flight the whole length of the hill, they returned 

 higher in the air, performing over and over again the 

 complete circuit. Occasionally a few hundreds or 

 thousands of them w r ould drop down, as if following 

 some leader ; and in an instant the rocks, for a space 

 of several rods, would swarm all over with them, — 

 their black backs and pure white breasts speckling 

 the hill very prettily. 



1 The food of the little auk, as indeed the food of all of the Arctic 

 water-fowl, consists of different varieties of marine invertebrata, chiefly 

 Crustacea, with which the Arctic waters abound. It is owing to the riches 

 of the North water in these low forms of marine life that the birds flock 

 there in such great number during the breeding season, which begins ill 

 June and ends in August. 



