132 THE ESKIMO ABOUT BERING STRAIT [kth.ann. 18 



summer plumage appears about their necks. At tliis time they become 

 extremely pugnacious and utter loud notes of challenge, which so excite 

 other males within hearing that desperate battles ensue. The birds 

 occupy small knolls or banks of snow, which give them a vantage point 

 from which to look over the adjacent plain. If, when on his knoll, the 

 male ptarmigan hears another uttering his call within the area he con- 

 siders his own he flies to the intruder and fiercely attacks him. This 

 habit is taken advantage of by the Eskimo, who stuff the skin of one 

 of these birds rudely and mount it upon a stick which holds the head 

 outstretched. This decoy is taken to the vicinity of one of the calling 

 males, and it is planted on a knoll or snowdrift so that it forms a con- 

 spicuous object. The hunter then surrounds it with a finely made net 

 of sinew cord supported by slender sticks. Both netting and sticks are 

 pale yellow in color, and are scarcely discernible at a short distance. 

 The hunter then conceals himself close by and imitates the challenge 

 note; the bird hears it and flies straight to the spot. As he flies swiftly 

 along within a few feet of the ground he sees his supposed rival, dashes 

 at him, and is entangled in the net. The hunter secures him, after which 

 he carries the decoy and the net to the vicinity of another bird. 



Figure 9, plate li, illustrates one of these fine-meshed x)tarmigan 

 nets, from St Michael. It is made of sinew cord, and is about 10 feet 

 in length. At each end it has a wooden spreader, in the form of a round 

 stake, about 18 inches in length, tapering at the lower end, to which a 

 deerhorn j)oint is securely lashed. In the middle of the net is a similar 

 wooden spreader. 



In the collection from Cape Prince of Wales is a similar but stronger 

 sinew net (number 43354) having the two end spreaders and three 

 wooden sticks for use along the middle of the net for holding it in 

 position. 



Once when hunting near the Yukon mouth in the month of May, 

 while patches of snow still covered the ground in places, I saw my 

 Eskimo companion decoy ptarmigan by molding some soft snow into 

 the form of a bird; around the part representing the neck he placed a 

 bunch of brown moss to imitate the brown plumage. This image was 

 placed on a small knoll ; from a short distance the imitation of a ptar- 

 migan was excellent and the hunter succeeded in calling up several 

 birds that were in the vicinity. He told me that hunters used to call 

 the birds in this manner to shoot tliem with arrows when they were 

 hunting on the tundra and had no food. 



After the first snow of winter great flocks of ptarmigan migrate 

 southward across the Kaviak peninsula and resort to the valleys of 

 Yukon and Kuskokwim rivers for the winter. They fly mainly at 

 night, and usually begin to move just as it is becoming dusk, when it 

 is still possible to distinguish objects at a distance of 75 or 100 yards. 

 A favorite direction for these flights is down the valleys of the rivers 

 flowing southward into Norton bay. 



