376 HUNTING WITH THE ESKIMOS 



eggs and a few gull eggs of different varieties, for 

 my collection of specimens. These I blew and pre- 

 pared for transportation home, and after several 

 hours' absence returned to our camp on the north 

 side of the island. 



Two hours later Portlooner joined me, explaining 

 that he had been setting steel traps for ducks. I 

 lighted my oil stoves, fried some ducks' breasts in 

 their own grease for dinner and very palatable they 

 were and we started out again, Portlooner after 

 eggs and I after ducks. 



In this hunt I used my .22 automatic rifle, as I had 

 no more shot cartridges with me, and found it 

 necessary to shoot setting birds. I am well aware 

 that this method of hunting will appeal to the sports- 

 man as butchery, and of course that is all it was. It 

 offered no sport, and there was no more pleasure in 

 it than in butchering a lot of domesticated fowls. 

 But fowls are butchered in much greater numbers 

 every year for the markets of civilization, and not 

 by the consumers, either. Those who may be inclined 

 to cry, therefore, against my duck killing at this 

 time, should remember that they never question the 

 propriety of killing domesticated fowls, and that he 

 who eats them is as blameworthy as the butcher who 

 kills them. During my stay with the Eskimos I was 

 constantly under obligation to them. They devoted 

 their time to assist me in various ways time that 

 normally they should have occupied in killing birds 

 and animals, during the short season of plenty, as 

 food provision against the long dark winter of 



