FOOD-BIRDS OF THE SMITH SOUND ESKIMOS 5 



much like fat young squabs, and always rolling in golden 

 fat. The fulmars are eaten in great numbers in early 

 spring, even though they are most unpalatable, for they are 

 the first birds to return in large numbers. The guillemots, 

 too, are used a great deal for food. 



The sandpipers, snipes, and other shore birds are not 

 often eaten because they are so rare or so hard to get. Ra- 

 vens are rather frequently eaten, and the Eskimos profess 

 to like them. 



Besides the birds themselves, the eggs are a considerable 

 addition to the Eskimos' larder. On Lyttleton Island, 

 McGary's rock, and other islets north of Etah, the Eski- 

 mos gather thousands of eider eggs, which they store away 

 under rocks for winter use. Likewise in Inglefield Gulf 

 they get hundreds of eider eggs, though not so many as 

 near Etah. The eggs freeze solid and keep fresh until the 

 next summer. At the great murre rookeries, the Eskimos 

 collect thousands of the murre eggs on the high, dangerous 

 cliffs ; and in the nesting-places of the dovekies, the Eskimo 

 women and children gather the pigeon-like eggs, which 

 they eat frozen in the long arctic night as the children 

 of the southland eat chocolates. Wherever the dovekies 

 nest in numbers the Eskimos gather their eggs too. 



Without these birds and eggs, the Eskimos' food supply 

 would often fail them ; and though the abundance of birds 

 is but one of the conditions that make human life possible 

 in that far north country, it is of as great importance as 

 any. Small wonder it is then that the Eskimos half uncon- 

 sciously mark most of the natural periods of their year by 

 some bird activity or some bird movement ; as, for example, 

 the time that we call June, the Eskimos call the time of 

 nesting birds. And just as small wonder it is that they 

 rejoice when the first birds come to their country. 



