ESKIMOS 149 
when an Eskimo leaves a snow-house, his household goods 
are removed by breaking a hole in the side of the wall. They 
are then loaded on the sled, and retained by cross-lashings of 
sealskin passed from side to side, where they are secured in the 
niches of the cross-bars. 
When the ice has frozen several miles out from the shore 
many of the seals remain in the shallow waters of the bays and 
sounds. In order to do this they are compelled to keep holes 
open so that they may breathe from time to time. They form 
these holes either by enlarging natural cracks or, when such do 
not occur, by scraping with their front flippers a conical hole 
big enough to admit their body and with a few inches to spare 
at the surface. As the time approaches to bring forth her 
young, the female enlarges a hole, usually in rough ice where 
the snow is deeply drifted, and there clears away the snow about 
the hole, forming a flat-domed house sufficiently large to accom- 
modate herself and her young. The pups are born in March and 
April. A seal does not necessarily confine itself to one or more 
breathing holes of its own, but uses those of other seals, so that 
the chances of killing a seal at any particular hole varies. The 
eskimo now forsakes the edge of the floe and hunts his seals 
at these holes. In order to find the holes he employs his keenest 
scented dog, harnessed, who soon smells a hole and rushes to it 
dragging his master with him. If the hole appears well fre- 
quented, and the Eskimo is anxious to obtain a seal, he takes 
the dog some distance away and ties him securely by his trace 
to the ice. He then returns to the hole, and clears the snow 
from about its opening, replacing it with a fresh thin slab, on 
which the centre of the hole is plainly marked. If he intends 
to remain until a seal comes, he often erects a low wall of snow 
to Windward, and sometimes places a block close to the hole as 
a seat. A piece of deer or bear skin is put down to stand on; he 
then ties a thong around his legs at the knees so that they may 
make no noise by striking together when shivering with the 
