156 A SUMMER ON THE YENESEI 



son, Nerobi. It works by means of a strong spring, which, 

 when released by the raising of the bait, allow\s a stout 

 block of wood studded with long iron pins to crash 

 down and impale the animal. When the Samoyedes go 

 fox-catching, they track their quarry to his lair. They 

 then scrape away the snow with a long-handled bone 

 instrument, shaped something like the " back scratchers " 

 that our ancestors used in a less polite age, and set a 

 trap at the entrance of the hole. They say that thus 

 the fox will not suspect human interference, as he would 

 do if he smelt the taint of hands on the snow. Some- 

 times they smash the ice at the edge of a pool, and set 

 a trap at the place where the animal will come to 

 drink. A few years ago a mammoth was found close to 

 Golchika, and all through the winter the natives fed 

 their dogs and baited their traps with frozen meat that 

 was many times older than history. 



In 1914, white foxskins cost thirty roubles apiece 

 for picked pelts. That was considered cheap. The 

 previous year the price was forty roubles (£4). That 

 was for winter skins. White fox is sometimes sold in 

 the summer, when it is grey in colour, and it is then 

 known as " crossed fox," because of the dark markings 

 on the shoulders. Real blue foxskins now fetch a hundred 

 roubles or more apiece. Not so very many years ago 

 they could be bought for five or ten roubles each, but 

 that was in the golden days of the fur trade, before the 

 poor native knew the value of his goods in the Western 

 markets. Nowadays it is almost as cheap to buy furs 

 in Yenesiesk as to buy them in the chooms. 



At the end of August, some Dolgans came to 



