1 20 Bulletin American Museum of Natural History. [Vol. XIX, 



in hundreds and go out again with the tide. In the summer 

 of 1899 a party of Koryaks who were encamped just below 

 the mouth of the Ovecho River surrounded a school, which 

 had ventured in nearer to the mouth of the river than usual, 

 with their bidarkas, and succeeded in keeping sixteen from 

 returning to the sea until the tide went out and left them 

 stranded on the great mud-flat thus left exposed. 



"On October 16, 1900, a foetus (No. 301 in collection) was 

 brought to me which had been taken from a female killed off 

 the mouth of the Gichiga River a few days previously. 



"A Finn now living at Gichiga was formerly employed 

 there by the American Trading Company in catching 'white 

 fish ' for their oil. The Russian name of the white whale is 

 Bi-loo-hah, and not Bi-loo-gah, as the American whalers call 

 them, which is the Russian name for a large species of sturgeon. 



"The following unpublished notes were taken at Point 

 Barrow, Alaska, in 1898. On the morning of May 3, Mr. 

 Chas. Brower of the Cape Smythe Whaling and Trading Com- 

 pany sent word to Mr. Mcllhenny that a native had just ar- 

 rived from one of his floe whaling camps with word that they 

 had found a school of white fish in a ' hole ' and had already 

 killed 70. Mr. Mcllhenny and his Japanese cook, together 

 with two Eskimos and dog team, set out immediately for the 

 scene. That night the cook returned with a note to me ask- 

 ing for a dog team and natives. Next morning I started with 

 four Eskimos and a sledge. After a rapid journey of five 

 hours over the sea ice we reached the 'hole.' On the way we 

 met more than twenty different gangs of natives with sledges 

 loaded with 'white fish' skins and meat. 



"On May 2 the wind blew lightly from the northeast until 

 3 P.M., when it hauled to the southwest and drove the ice-pack 

 in and closed up the series of holes between the pack-ice and 

 the land-floe, or 'ice-foot,' attached to the shore, except one 

 which the whales had found. 



"At 10 o'clock that night some of the Eskimo from the 

 whaling camp who had gone out after seals discovered the 

 fish imprisoned in this hole. The hole when first discovered 

 was about 150 yards long and 50 yards wide, but when I 



