Ethnological Notes. 



153 



ETHNOLOGICAL NOTES. 

 Bird-nets. 



An early reference to the use of large nets raised on 

 high poles to trap birds is that by Krasheninikoff and Steller 

 about 1741. (Grieve, History of Kamtchatka, p. 161. 

 1764.) In 1825 Dr. Scouler was told by some of the Indians 

 at Port Discovery that the high poles noticed there by 

 Vancouver were for catching birds (Journal of a Voyage to 

 N.W. America. Oreg. Hist. Soc. Quarterly, VI., p. 196), 

 and the same explanation was given to Wilkes and Paul 

 Kane in the same neighbourhood in 1841 and 1846. Cole- 

 man in 1868 saw them on Orcas Island, where they were 

 used with smoky fires at night. (Harper's New Monthly 

 Magazine, Nov., 1869, p. 794.) Finally there use was con- 

 tinued until quite lately at the mouth of the Chemainus 

 River, Vancouver Island. 



Woollen Blankets. 



Nearly every historian of the early voyages mentions 

 blankets of the wool of some animal. The first definite 

 statement as to the animal itself was made by Ledyard 

 (Journ. of Capt. Cook's Voy., p. 71), who speaks of gar- 

 ments " principally made with the hair of their dogs, which 

 are almost w^hite and of the domestic kind." This observa- 

 tion was made at Nootka in 1778, but as neither Cook 

 himself nor any other journalist of his third voyage noticed 

 the manufacture or use of dog's hair at Nootka, it is most 

 improbable that the blankets seen by Ledyard were made 

 there. A more likely supposition is that they were brought 

 by visitors from the southward, of whom mention is made. 

 No other reference has been found to confirm the idea 

 that dog's hair was used at Nootka in weaving, or at any 

 of the villages belonging to the same stock, except at Neeah 

 Bay, Washington. 



According to Vancouver these dogs were like those of 

 Pomeranian breed, with thick fleeces so compact that large 

 portions could be lifted by one corner without causing any 

 separation. They seem to have varied in colour from 

 yellowish-white to brown and to have been unable to bark. 



I.edyard, Capt. 

 Cook's Last 

 Voy., p. 71. 



Vane, I., 



p. 284. 



