Food-Birds op the Smith Sound Eskimos S 



gan has a sweeter, fresher flesh, freer from grease, thau 

 that of the water birds. 



Of the water birds, the dovekie (AUe aUe) , the murre 

 {Uria lotnvia lomvki), the guillemot {Gepphus mandtii)^ 

 the eiders (^omateria moUissima horealis and S. specta- 

 hilis), the black brant (Breuta heniicia glaiwogastra), the 

 snowy goose {Chen hyperhoreus nivalis), the glaucous gull 

 (Lams hyperhorcus), the ivory gull (Pagophila alha), the 

 kittiwake {Rissa tridactgla tridactyla), the fulmar (Fid- 

 marus glacialis glacialis), and the old squaw (Harelda 

 Jigeinalis) are the most used for food. 



The dovekie is the most important of these at most of 

 the villages and in general is so considered b}' the whole 

 tribe. Millions of these little birds nest in the sandstone 

 and basalt talus-slopes on Bushman Island, on the Crim- 

 son Cliffs at Cape York and westward, at Parker Snow 

 Bay, on the south shore of Northumberland Island, and 

 thence northward on the shores of every bay and Fjord 

 from Ingletield Gulf to Foulke Fjord. The northern limit 

 of their nesting-sites is Cape Hatherton. 



Small though they are, the dovekies are so numerous 

 and they are so readily caught by the Eskimo women in 

 the nets used for that purpose, that in a summer the Es- 

 kimos are able to catch, and lay away under stones, great 

 quantities of the little birds. When winter comes, and 

 other food becomes scarce, the Eskimos sledge to their 

 dovekie caches, which they find under the deep snow with 

 almost uncanny skill, dig out the tight-frozen masses of 

 birds, and bring them home, where they are eaten raw 

 and whole as we eat oysters, except that the feathers are 

 skinned off. Many times these caches of dovekies laid 

 away in the summer have warded off starvation in the win- 

 ter times of stress. 



Next to the dovekies the murres (Uria lomvia lomvia) 

 are the most important food-birds. Four places of Eskimo 

 habitation yield the greater number of these birds — Akpat, 

 on Saunders Island; Igfissuk, on Parker Snow Bay; an- 



