DOVEKIE 221 



and these "Arctic Highlanders" could not have persisted here as the most 

 northern people of the world. No trading station would have been established 

 by the Danes; one of the chief incentives to some of Peary's and other expedi- 

 tions of the coast would have been missing. The grass slopes about the rook- 

 eries, the luxuriant herbage being due to their dung, support the largest num- 

 bers of hare and ptarmigan, and probably afforded the richest pastures for the 

 caribou before the introduction of firearms effected their extermination from 

 some of the areas along the coast. The burgomaster gull and the gyrfalcon 

 feed upon the dovekie throughout the summer and rear their young upon them 

 too. The fox, burgomaster gull, and gyrfalcon are the chief natural enemies of 

 the dovekie; in addition, the Eskimo, the raven, and perhaps some of the water 

 animals prey upon the birdlets; the whitewhale, so the Eskimo say, catches 

 and eats many. 



The fox preys not only upon the bird but upon the eggs as well. Through 

 the nesting season and while the young are growing the foxes frequent the 

 talus slopes, gorging themselves and laying in their winter stores. Lurking 

 behind a rock until a flock alights near and then rushing upon the birds, 

 stealthily creeping upon a flock and pouncing upon them, or crawling into the 

 holes after them in one way or another the fox gets all he wants. And the 

 auklets recognize him as an enemy, for at his approach, if they detect him, 

 they are off in confusion and haste. 



The most terrible and persistent of the dovekie's enemies is the burgomaster 

 gull, for the only refuge from him is a hole in the rocks. Even the swift 

 gyrfalcon that pursues them relentlessly in the air is not so inexorable, for 

 from him they can escape in the water. When a burgomaster singles out a 

 dovekie as his prey the only hope for the auklet is to escape into a hole in the 

 rocks, or by a quick dash into a flock succeed in diverting the pursuit to some 

 other luckless dovekie. The burgomaster displays much agility and skill in 

 following up the evolutions of the frightened dovekie, and often catches him on 

 the wing. When the dovekie dives into the water the burgomaster hovers over 

 him like an aeroplane over a submarine, following his underwater course, and 

 the moment he comes up striking at him to force him under without a chance 

 for rest or breath, repeating this until the little fellow is exhausted, when his 

 big tormentor seizes him and makes a meal of him in a single gulp. The 

 dovekies live in deadly terror of the gull and gyrfalcon, and whenever one of 

 these big birds sails along the cliffs it is the signal for a panic-stricken flight 

 of the dovekies. The raven is not so feared because not so greedy, and be- 

 cause he likes a varied diet, and does not bother them so much. Teedly- 

 ingwah, a reliable Eskimo, says he has seen white whales catch many dove- 

 kies and eat them, and that he has found the whole birds in the stomachs of 

 the whale. 



The importance of the dovekie as a food bird to the Eskimos of 

 northern Greenland is well illustrated by the following quotation 

 from Mr. Figgins's (1899) notes: 



To Hie the dovekie was the most interesting as well as the most numerous 

 bird observed, and it is surprising that they survive the persecution to which 

 they are subjected. During years when game is scarce, the natives depend 

 almost entirely on the dovekie for food, and they are caught by the thousands 

 and stored in great piles for winter use. Without the dovekie the little tribe 

 of north Greenland Eskimos would long since have perished of hunger. The 

 ground about their villages is thickly strewn with the bones of the dovekie, 

 giving abundant proof of the millions which have been devoured. When on 



