440 LABRADOR 



way in rough water, the white foam making it impossible 

 to distinguish him when he came up. I have known a 

 large bear to get at the seal oil in a headed-up hard wood 

 puncheon, and actually break the staves, presumably with 

 blows from his paw. Their flesh has a fishy flavor, but the 

 natives value the meat very highly. 



Phoca Greenlandica. The seal was once almost innumer- 

 able, but is now getting scarce, owing to the pelagic fishing 

 during the breeding season. They are of immense value 

 to the residents for the skin, fat, and meat. They seem to 

 share the magnetic sense of the bears and birds. A baby 

 seal six weeks old is called a " beater," and goes straight 

 north almost at once. That he does not permanently lose 

 his way as he wanders off into the mouths of our big bays 

 is a difficult fact to explain otherwise. 



Odobenus rosmarus. A walrus was killed at St. Anthony 

 on the northeast coast of Newfoundland in the spring of 

 1910. They are still occasionally taken along the east 

 coast of Labrador, but are gradually being driven north. 



Lynx Canadensis. The lynx is getting decidedly scarcer. 

 His size and strength puts him with us among our most 

 destructive animals. His skin has risen to about ten times 

 the value it had twenty years ago. A trapper told me a 

 story of two lynx who regularly hunted and rounded up a 

 fox. I myself have seen where one had run down a fox 

 and killed him. Another trapper described seeing two 

 lynx attack an otter, which, however, got away safely. 



Putorius vison. The mink has the habits of the otter 

 and preys on fish. 



Arctorus ignavus.Ou? woodchucks hibernate in the 

 winter like bears. Our people have to leave their houses in 



