298 



cut off and the whole booty finally driven in the dog-sledges 

 to the coast. 



At the same time as the walrus hunting is going on, foxes 

 and hares are caught in amongst the coastal hills. The skin 

 of these animals is good and fit for use at this time of year, 

 and it is specially for the sake of the skin that they are hunted. 

 The foxes are nowadays taken in the modern American fox- 

 traps, but we still find everywhere the remains of the old 

 stone-traps. These consist of a small stone-box built of flat 

 stones on the surface of the ground ; this is closed at one end 

 and just so long and so high that a fox can crawl into it, at- 

 tracted by a piece of blubber. This blubber is, however, con- 

 nected by means of a thong with a large, flat stone, which 

 falls down and closes the trap, as soon as the fox seizes hold 

 of the blubber. The hares are caught in running nooses, the 

 arrangement and make-up of which \Yiil be described later. 



Towards the middle of April breaks occur in the ice at 

 several places nearer to the land, and the walrus are scattered 

 along the coast. The Eskimos again disperse, going as a rule 

 to various settlements in the outer parts of the fjords; at the 

 same time they keep to the bird-grounds, which are taken 

 possession of. by the birds about the middle of May. One group, 

 for example, goes to Agpat or Saunders Island and remains 

 there hunting the walrus, seals and narwhal, and later bird- 

 catching, until the end of June; then just before the ice breaks 

 up they move in on the mainland to the settlement IJmanark 

 at North Star Bay, where they pass the summer. Others set 

 up their snow-huts in the neighbourhood of Kiatark and go 

 later to one of the mainland settlements in the mouth of the 

 Inglefield Gulf; others pass the spring on the north side of 

 Inglefield Gulf. 



During the spring hunting two characteristic methods of 

 hunting the seal are used. The one depends on the fact, that 

 the mother-seal, when calving, digs a hole in under the snow, 



