No.i4or,. ^fA^f^fALS of xoirrrfWEsr TERRTToniKs—MACFARLANE. 72'r 



from taint the Eskimos had fried lirer and steaks for breakfast, the 

 latter preferred. They had ))een washed in two or three waters to 

 get rid of the hhil)her. The flesh was very dark and very tender. 



McClintoek (h)ulits if seals breed in the drifting pack, as they never 

 saw any cnl)s during their stay in that risky position. /*. hi'<plda may 

 also be known to the Eskimos of the northern coast of America, 

 (xeneral Greely writes that it is indigenous at Grinnell Land, and that 

 it was met with as high as latitude 82'-^ 58' north. ]\ (invuhind'tcn is 

 also present as far as latitude 81 8(»' north, but he considers it migra- 

 tory. They secured a number of the several resident species, including 

 27 examples of P. luxpida. Sir Edward Parry's highest latitude 

 (attained in 1827) was 82- 50' north. In a lane of open water in the 

 ice he observed one of the last-mentioned species. This was until 

 recently thought to be the most northerly position ever reached b}^ 

 seals. Mr. Preble noticed a numl)er of skins of this species in the 

 compan3"'s stores at Fort Churchill, Hudson Bay. 



From Hudson Bay, Ungava, and Labrador, the company receive and 

 sell in London annualh" thousands of hair-seal skins. From 1853 

 to 1877 the sales aggregated a total of 259,600. The three best 3^ears 

 in the series were 1867 with 21,458, 1861 with 18,104, and 1863 with 

 16,933; and the three lowest, 1853 with 1,425, 1854 with 2,021, and 

 1855 with 2,842. After a long period of good results, the returns have 

 fallen to only 3,061 skins for 1902, and 2,509 for 1903. There is 

 reason to believe that other species of seals besides the harbor seal are 

 embraced in the foregoing sales statement. 



(Some reference to Fort Churchill may not prove out of place 

 among these mammalian notes. Comparatively few of the Cana- 

 dians of to-day are aware that ""upon a rocky spit forming one side, 

 and conuuanding a splendid harbor, stand the still well-preserved 

 remains of a massive fortification, the most northerh' one of British 

 America, scarcel}' inferior as such even to old Louisburg and early 

 Quebec, its site admirably chosen, its design and armament once per- 

 fect, and interesting still as a relic of a by-gone strife, and now only 

 useful as a beacon for the harbor it had failed to protect." Some day 

 again, however, in the not distant future, when the Hudson Bay 

 route, now so much decried by many eastern and by a few western 

 "unbelievers," shall have become an accomplished and successful navi- 

 gable ocean waterway between Canada and Europe, the Imperial Gov- 

 ernment may consider it advisable to rebuild upon the ruins of the 

 old, a new and impregnable "Fort Prince of Wales.") 



