THE 



WILSON BULLETIN 



NO. 106 

 A QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF ORNITHOLOGY 



VOL. XXXI MARCH, 1919 NO. 1 



OLD SERIES VOL. XXXI. NEW SERIES VOL,. XXVI. 



THE FOOD-BIKDS OF THE SMITH SOUND 

 ESKIMOS. 



BY AV. ELMER EKBLAW. 



The title of the article in itself conveys a wrong im- 

 pression by snggesting that any of the birds that come to 

 Northwest Greenland, the home of the Smith Sonnd Eski- 

 mos, is not used for food. Because existence in that far 

 northern region is often precarious and the nmrgin of 

 safety in food supply is always narrow, every living thing 

 in the land may be, and in times of stress is, put into the 

 soaj)stone pot to boil; and if not cooked, eaten raw. Con- 

 sequently every bird is eaten, from the little snow-bunting 

 to the great northern raven. 



Of course, the Eskimos have their preferences and like 

 some birds far better than others, but in starvation times, 

 when strips of sole leather are the only items on the Es- 

 kimo menu, even the oldest, toughest, greasiest, bird is a 

 delicacy. Famine does not often actually face the tribe, 

 but several times in its history the game has failed them 

 so utterly for so long a time that many of the Eskimos 

 have succumbed to starvation. These times of stress usually 

 come in the early spring wdien first the sun rises above the 

 horizon, before the birds have come back; old Eskimos say 

 that starvation would manj^ more times have overtaken 

 them, except for the timely arrival of the first birds. 



The birds of the land most certainlv saved the tribe from 



