42 The Wilson Bulletin — No. 107 



The snow-bunting comes to the Far North in late 

 April or early May; when the heavens are so blue that 

 they can't be bluer; when the stars have all been gone out 

 of the sky for a month ; when the midnight sun has risen 

 far enough above the northern horizon to peep over the 

 highest mountains on the rim of the world, and to bring 

 a suggestion of spring into the Northland; when for two 

 or three days the sun-warmed southern wind has blown, 

 and the Eskimos say they can feel the balminess of sum- 

 mer coming, though they still wear their heavy caribou- 

 skin kooletas, or fox-fur kapetahs ; then all at once, out 

 of the very sky, it seems, falls the joyful song of the snow- 

 bunting. Only a few moments later, a pair of the song- 

 sters, coming from how many miles southward nobody 

 knows, drops cheerfully upon one of the snow-bare rock 

 ledges near an Eskimo village. 



A shout of joy greets the little travelers, for "koop- 

 enobk" is a favorite with the people. His coming is the 

 signal for them to abandon the crowded little stone-igloos 

 in which they have lived a semi-troglodytic life through 

 the winter, for the fresher, roomier skin-tupiks in which 

 they spend the summer. Often the snow is still deep about 

 the village site when they put up their tupiks and move 

 " out-of-doors," where they stay until the snow-bunting 

 leaves again. Undoubtedly the freedom from tuberculosis 

 and pulmonary illnesses, so characteristic of the Smith 

 Sound Eskimo in contrast with their disease-ridden rela- 

 tives farther south, is due to their custom of accepting the 

 snow-bunting's invitation to come out-of-doors to enjoy 

 the fresh air with him. 



The snow-bunting and his mate do not wait long to 

 select their nesting-place and to build their nest. They 

 make themselves busy at once examining every cranny and 

 crevice about the rocky slopes and ledges for a place where 

 they can be safe from prying eyes or hungry foxes. Usu- 

 ally they decide upon some crack in a steep ledge, but 



