Polar bears swimming, near Cape Parry 



captured twelve whales apiece, but the claims of some whalers that the 

 numbers of whales have not been greatly reduced by the last quarter cen- 

 tury of chase, seems extravagant. 



The limits of this paper prevent extended discussion of the haunts and 

 habits of the smaller Arctic birds. From September to May practically the 

 only game bird is the ptarmigan. From northwestern Alaska to Franklin 

 Bay, I found both the willow and rock ptarmigan present in almost every 

 locality, while in the Coronation Gulf region only the rock ptarmigan was 

 found. Immense numbers appear on the coast in early spring although 

 some are found the year round. As these birds are spread so universally 

 over a vast territory and people are so few, a comparatively small number 

 are killed. A few are snared and netted but unless other food fails, ptarmigan 

 are usually considered too small to waste ammunition on. The trapping 

 of mammals by the natives is beneficial to the birds, destroying a large num- 

 ber of predatory foxes and the like, which in summer feed extensively on 

 birds, their nests and eggs. 



In the region around Kittigaryuit near Sir J. Richardson's Point En- 

 counter on the eastern side of the Mackenzie delta, there is more bird shoot- 

 ing than among any other Eskimo I met. In 1910 the whole population for 

 about a month depended almost entirely on the white-fronted, Hutchins's, 

 black brant and snow geese, as well as on numbers of whistling swans. 

 Ducks were considered too small and were not often molested. An inter- 

 esting experience here one June was a long sled trip over the ice of the 

 Mackenzie estuary to a locally famous brant rookery. Only a few miles 

 south of this typically Arctic zone, up inside the tree line south of Richard 

 Island, the birds are of the Canadian zone — robins, yellow warblers and 

 thrushes being common. 



19 



