14 THE AMERICAN MUSEUM JOURNAL 



Sound and after helping to thin out the sheep in three of the valleys east 

 of the Colville, had made his last stand on the Hula-hula. 



Although the numbers of sheep have been greatly reduced, I believe that 

 a few are still found near the head of every river from the Colville to the 

 Mackenzie. The natives hunt strictly for meat and skins, and the habitat 

 of the sheep prevents the hunters from picking up this animal as a side line 

 to other game hunting or trapping. When a local influx of hunters cuts 

 down the number of sheep beyond a certain limit in some mountain valley, 

 pressure of hunger soon causes the people to move out. Word is passed 

 along that a certain river is starvation country and an automatic close season 

 affords the sheep a chance to recuperate. 



The barren ground bear or grizzly is of interest as a rare species in collec- 

 tions. This bear, known to the Eskimo as aklak from Bering Sea to Corona- 

 tion Gulf, is perhaps referable to several races. In northern Alaska it does 

 not appear to be very common in the mountains and seldom if ever comes out 

 on the coastal plains. The inland Eskimo occasionally kill specimens and 

 often use the skin for a tent door. In the Mackenzie delta, tracks are often 

 seen, but the bears are seldom killed owing to the impracticability of hunting 

 them through the dense underbrush on the islands in summer. The Eskimo, 

 who are usually undaunted under any circumstances by nannuk, the polar 

 bear, speak with much greater respect of the pugnacity of aklak and are 

 much more cautious about attacking him. Many a time I have been 

 warned against shooting at a barren ground bear unless from above — as a 

 wounded bear has greater difficulty in charging uphill. So far as our ex- 

 perience goes however, the barren ground bear is an inoffensive and wary 

 brute preferring to put as much ground as possible between himself and 

 human society. I saw but one unwounded grizzly come toward men, but 

 as he did not have their scent his advance was perhaps out of mere curiosity. 

 As he was on the uninhabited coast between Cape Lyon and Dolphin and 

 Union Strait and he had probably never seen human beings before, this 

 inference seems plausible. 



We found the center of greatest abundance of the barren ground bears 

 in the country around Langton Bay and on Horton River not more than 

 twenty or thirty miles south from Langton Bay. In this region our party 

 killed about twenty specimens, most of which were obtained on our dog- 

 packing expeditions in early fall. The barren ground bears go into hiberna- 

 tion about the first week of October and come out again early in April while 

 the weather is still very cold. They seem to be nearly as fat on their first 

 emergence from their long sleep as in the fall but speedily lose weight and 

 early summer specimens are invariably poor. This is natural from the 

 nature of their food which is to a large extent vegetable. Although the bear 

 country is conspicuously furrowed in many places by the unearthed burrows 

 of Arctic spermophiles, I believe the bear's search is more for the little mam- 



