50 NATURAL HISTORY OF ARCTIC AMERICA. 



snow, and covered the whole with snow; but they dug beneath the trap, 

 and secured tlie bait from below, often even without springing the trap. 

 With an ice trap made after the Eskimo pattern I was more successful. 



As soon as the seals begin pupping, the foxes fare better; this season 

 is in foct the grand banqueting time for these animals, after the long 

 sufleriugs and privations of winter. At this season, (March, April, and 

 May), they destroy a great many young seals. I have often found the 

 remains of the seals so well sldnned and cleaned that it seems impossi- 

 ble it could liave been done by an animal. They begin by biting the 

 sliin around the mouth, and drawing the entire animal through the aper- 

 ture, and turning the skin inside out; even the flippers are drawn through 

 to the nails, and every vestige of the meat removed. Nor is the skin 

 bitten in the least, although it is finely cleaned of all the fat. But the 

 most remarkable part of all is, that the skeleton remains intact and finely 

 cleaned. When the Eskimo find such skins, they always make use of 

 them, as they are quite as well skinned as if they had done it them- 

 selves. The white variety appears to be much more abundant than the 

 blue. According to the Eskimo, the two varieties interbreed, and the 

 young are sometimes dark and both parents white, and vice versa. Dur- 

 ing the winter months they congregate in considerable numbers about 

 any carcass, especially a whale, and get themselves thoroughly begrimed 

 with grease. 



It often happens that some venturesome fellow succeeds in getting 

 upon the ducks' island, in breeding time, by means of the ice, and is 

 left there; but when the birds leave he gets enough shell-fish, &c., at 

 low-water to live on till the ice makes. If they are a short distance from 

 the mainland or from other islands, they do not hesitate to take to the 

 water. 



3. Canis faiuiliaris, Liuud, var. borealis. 



''Kidmik," or "Miklcie," Cumberland Eskimo. 



As might be expected, the dogs of the Cumberland Eskimo are afflicted 

 with the much dreaded rabies. I paid considerable attention to the 

 subject, in hopes of being able to throw some light on the cause of this 

 disease, but, like many others before me, with little success. In the first 

 l)lace, so far as the dogs about our winter harbor were concerned at least, 

 there are other causes besides the so-called hydrojihobia that lessens 

 their ranks, though when a dog dies this is always the cause assigned. 

 Some of the best dogs that died at Annanactook during the winter of 

 1877-78 died from injuries inflicted on the head by a club in the hands 



