340 A JOURNEY TO THE 



part of them to find subsistence by the way ; but when they 

 come near the Fort, the carcasses of dead whales lying along 

 the shores, and the skin and other offal, after boiling the oil, 

 [364] afford them a plentiful repast, and prove the means of 

 keeping them about the Fort till, by frequent reinforcements 

 from the Northward, their numbers are so far increased as 

 almost to exceed credibility. 



When their skins are in season, a number of traps and 

 guns are set, and the greatest part of them are caught in one 

 month, though some few are found during the whole Winter. 

 I have frequently known near forty killed in one night within 

 half a mile of Prince of Wales's Fort ; but this seldom 

 happens after the first or second night. When Churchill 

 River is frozen over near the mouth, the greatest part of the 

 surviving white Foxes cross the river, and direct their course 

 to the Southward, and in some years assemble in considerable 

 numbers at York Fort and Severn River. Whether they are 

 all killed, or what becomes of those which escape, is very 

 uncertain ; but it is well known that none of them ever 

 migrate again to the Northward. Besides taking a trap so 

 freely, they are otherwise so simple, that I have seen them 

 shot off-hand while feeding, the same as sparrows in a heap of 

 chaff, sometimes two or three at a shot. This sport is always 

 most successful in moon-light nights ; for in the daytime 

 they generally keep in their holes among the rocks, and under 

 the hollow ice at high-water-mark. 



These animals will prey on each other as readily as on any 

 other animals they find dead in a trap, or wounded by gun ; 

 which renders them so destructive, that I have known upwards 

 of one hundred and twenty Foxes of dif[365]ferent colours 

 eaten, and destroyed in their traps by their comrades in the 

 course of one Winter, within half a mile of the Fort. 



The Naturalists seem»still at a loss to know their breeding- 

 places, which are doubtless in every part of the coast they 

 frequent. Several of them breed near Churchill, and I have 



