4: The Wilson Bulletin — No. 106 



other Akpat, along the Crimson Cliffs; and Keatek on 

 Northumberland Island. The word ''Akpat " sig-nities in 

 Eskimo, " the place of the mnrres." The murres are also 

 caught in nets in large numbers, but many are shot in the 

 water or on the wing. The murres are relatively less nu- 

 merous and less easily caught than the dovekies, but their 

 larger size compensates for these disadvantages, so that 

 the Eskimos eagerly await their coming and catch large 

 nund)ers, which they lay away under rocks as they do the 

 dovekies. The murres instead of nesting under rocks as 

 do the dovekies, nest on ledges of steep high cliffs. 



The eider, — the Greenland eider and in minor degree 

 the king eider — are perhaps of somewhat less importance 

 than the dovekies and the murres. To almost every islet 

 along the coast, hundreds, even thousands, of the eider 

 come every summer to lay their eggs. In the old days the 

 Eskimos caught nearly all the eiders that they used for 

 food in long lines of snares stretched between the rocks 

 where the birds nested, but now nearly all the hunters have 

 shot-guns, which they use most skillfully and with uner- 

 ring aim. The old snares were very successful; sometimes 

 a line of snares held two-score birds at a time. 



The black brants are rather common along the coast, but 

 they are too Avary to be killed in large numbers. Only in 

 the nesting season do the Eskimos get many. The snow 

 geese are not at all common, but almost every fall, when 

 the birds moult before migrating south, the Eskimo get a 

 few. As a rule an Eskimo must be rather hungry before 

 he kills an old-squaw for food, but it is fairly common 

 along tlie whole coast. 



Of the gulls, the Eskimos eat every kind. The glaucous 

 gulls are caught in a particular kind of snare along cracks 

 in the ice, and in the open pools about icebergs. Tlie old 

 gulls are rather tough, but tlie young birds, while in their 

 pale-brown barred plumage, are as tender and sweet as a 

 spring-chicken. The ivory gulls and the kittiwakes are 

 often killed and eaten, too. The kittiwakes are very good, 



