IN THE ALASKA-YUKON GAMELANDS 



them, and they die by the wholesale. I am told 

 that the apex of their abundance is reached about 

 every seven years. That is their death-knell, 

 and the following year there isn't a rabbit nor a 

 ptarmigan to be found. Gradually, however, 

 they begin to come back and continue to increase 

 for seven years, when again the plague seizes 

 them and they disappear as before. I conclude, 

 of course, that all these birds and animals could 

 not be killed off at each recurring period, other- 

 wise there would be no seed left for reproduction. 

 I wonder if such a plague could have wiped 

 away our passenger pigeons, which disappeared 

 so suddenly and mysteriously from our midst 

 many years ago. 



Not a great while back there were no coyotes 

 to be found on the White River, but now they 

 are working into that country, and it may not 

 be many years before they will be as great a men- 

 ace to the game of Alaska and Yukon Territory 

 as they are now to the stock and game of the 

 States. 



As we topped the boggy eminence that morn- 

 ing above our Skolai camp we beheld that gorge- 

 ful of glistening ice known as Russell Glacier, 

 straight ahead and a mile away. The mouth of 

 this great ice-mass stretched across the stream 

 bed for a mile or two, resembling at this distance 

 a great long strip of canvas pegged down at 

 either end by the rocky promontories of the 

 gulch. Soon we climbed up on its slippery sur- 



7* 



