Oftobcr. 



THE PACIFIC OCEAN. 



quality much fuperior to thofe either of Siberia or America. JJ7Q 

 A variety of artifices are made ufe of by the hunters to 

 catch this animal, which, in all climates, feems to preferve 

 the fame character of craftinefs and cunning. Traps of 

 different forts, fome calculated to fall upon them, others to 

 catch them by the feet, others by the head, are amongft the 

 molt common ; to which may be added, feveral ingenious 

 contrivances for taking them in nets. Poifoncd baits are 

 likewife in ufe ; and the mix vomica is the drug principally 

 employed for this purpofe. Before their knowledge of the 

 Ruffians, by which they became acquainted with fire-arms, 

 they alfo carried bows and arrows to the chace. But fmce 

 that period, almofl every Kamtfchadale is provided with a 

 rifle-barrel gun ; and, though far from being dextrous in 

 the ufe of it, its fuperiority over the former inftruments he 

 is ready to acknowledge. 



The fables * of Kamtfchatka are faid to be confidcrably 

 larger than thofe of Siberia, and their fur much thicker and 

 brighter, though not of fo good a black as thofe in the neigh- 

 bourhood of the Olekma and the Vitime|, a circumflance 

 which depreciates their value much more than their fupe- 

 riority in other refpects enhances it. The fables of the Tigil 

 and Ouka are counted the beft in Kamtfchatka; and a pair 

 of thefe fometimes fell for thirty roubles (five pounds fter- 

 ling). The worft are thofe of the Southern extremity. The 

 apparatus of the fable hunters confift of a rifle-barrel gun 

 of an exceedingly fmall bore, a net, and a few bricks: with 

 the firft they moot them when they fee them on the trees ; 

 the net is to furround the hollow trees in which, when pur- 



* Mujiela zibelltna. 



■\ Risers emptying themfelves into the Lens, near its fourcc 



fucd, 



34* 



