110 On the trail of vanishing birds 



On a high bluff along the east bank was a small house, occupied 

 during the trapping season, as we learned later, by Malcom Mc- 

 Nab, but it was empty during our visit to the delta. In winter 

 all travel would be by dogteam on the sea ice or along the length 

 of the icebound Eskimo Lakes. There is a winter trading post at 

 Stanton, just beyond the mouth of the Anderson to the east, and 

 others at Maitland Point and Cape Bathurst, but in summer we 

 had the entire region to ourselves. Except by airplane, summer 

 travel in those regions is difficult and unprofitable. 



The blank brant numbered around 1,200 and the snow geese 

 something like 700. Both had young in various stages of growth. 

 We also found several pairs of glaucous gulls with downy young, 

 and when we picked up the little ones to photograph them the 

 adults dived on us with a fierceness and a tenacity I have seen in 

 no other bird. We also observed two parasitic jaegers hunting to- 

 gether, one in the dark and the other in the light color phase. 

 Among other birds noted were several Sabine's gulls, a species 

 that neither of us had seen until our first flights over the flat 

 coastal tundra on the outer Dalhousie peninsula. Here they appear 

 to nest, along with king eiders, old squaws, scoters, and occasional 

 snowy owls. 



When flying over the tundra to the east, near Liverpool Bay, 

 we had seen grizzlies, but fortunately none appeared along the 

 Anderson during our stay, and the fact that we were camping on 

 an island provided us with a natural moat within which we 

 slumbered peacefully. We did see scattered caribou on the tundra 

 bordering the west shore, and several times one of the huge tundra 

 wolves (Canis tundrarum) that inhabit that region called on us. 

 Each time we retired this wolf left a circle of tracks in the mud 

 around our tent. The imprint of his huge forepaw was wider 

 across than the palm of my hand. But he never bothered us, and 

 we caught a fleeting glimpse of him only once. How such a big 

 animal could conceal himself so successfully on an island less 

 than two square miles in extent, and almost without cover, was 

 one of the mysteries of the entire summer. 



Before leaving our camp on the Anderson I tried to obtain 

 photographs of the "real neglek" on its eggs. We had found one 



