CHAPTER LTI 



THE SAMOYEDE 



AMONG the beautiful foreign varieties which have 

 enriched our list of domestic dogs, the Samoyede 

 occupies a prominent position. Mr. Kilburn Scott, 

 whose wife owns one of the largest kennels in the 

 country, obtained his first dog from a tribe of Samo- 

 yedes twenty years ago. They are variously called 

 Eskimo, Wolf dogs, Spitz., &c., but the name given 

 is the correct one, the term Eskimo being confined 

 to dogs of Greenland and Alaska and the New World 

 generally. Spitz dogs are a German variety. The 

 Samoyede people are a most interesting race, the 

 original of the Finnic races, and they inhabit the 

 swamps of North -East Russia, east of Archangel. 

 They occupy themselves in reindeer rearing, and the 

 'dogs are used for rounding up and driving the deer, 

 just as we use Sheepdogs and Collies for sheep 

 and cattle. They are best known, however, in this 

 country through having been employed for sledge 

 work on so many Arctic and Antarctic expeditions. 

 One of the inmates of Mrs. Kilburn Scott's kennels 

 was a member of the pack taken by the Southern 

 Cross from Western Siberia to the Antarctic. After 

 some years of close confinement in Australia, his 



