652 



Life-histories of Northern Animals 



diseases of this kind from Rabbits they have eaten. Second, 

 every kind of human food, whether animal or vegetable, is 

 more or less infected by microbes. If that thought is to weigh, 

 we must never again eat a bite of anything. There is no way 

 of saying beforehand which are safe and which are dangerous, 

 but we may trust to the general principle that proper cooking 

 will put all these micro-organisms beyond the possibility of 

 doing harm. 



FUR 



Next after its flesh the skin of Wabasso is of service to 

 man. The hide is too weak and the fur too brittle for its com- 

 mercial use as a peltry, but the Indians cut it into long strips 

 and plait or weave these into blankets that are marvellously 

 warm, and that have this advantage over other fur robes — 

 they give ventilation, and so do not sweat the wearer, or become 

 damp during active service. They are very light as well as 

 warm, and in great demand by prospectors and travellers in 

 the far north. Many a miner, of the few that won on that 

 long, desperate Klondike trail, can truly give thanks for salva- 

 tion and golden success to the Snowshoe-hare, from which was 

 pillaged the blanket that kept him alive to win. 



