16 wljr Harbipr 



side, and as they are practically underground dwellings, these Eskimos may 

 be rightly called rock-dwellers. I visited a few of these original huts and in 

 order to enter the same I had to walk through a low and narrow twenty 

 feet passage, through the rocks. At the end of the passage, to my astonish- 

 ment, my guide disappeared through a round hole in a little wooden floor, 

 telling me to do the same. After entering this small cellar, I was guided up 

 through another hole a little farther in, which proved to lead up through 

 the floor to the living room. These huts are built almost air tight, the in- 

 terior being of wood, outside of this a layer of clay fills up the hollows be- 

 tween the stones resting directly on the walls. The only light passes through 

 a skylight made of walrus-gouts sewn together in a square sheet. In even- 

 one of the four corners of the room, wooden oil lamps have their places 

 and serve as cooking stoves as well as general heaters. The odor in a hut 

 of this kind is something fierce, and a white man will hesitate to try it for 

 any length of time, unless he has to. I made several attempts to take a 

 photo of such an interior, but in vain, for as soon as I entered, my camera 

 began to " shed tears" in the damp and hot air, and I had to hurry out 

 again. A few of the more well-to-do families live in canvas tents during- 

 the summer months. 



The next day after my arrival, (Aug. 26), I thoroughly searched the 

 western coast which was all the territory I could manage by foot, without 

 doing any regular mountaineering, across the island. The species of birds 

 that especially dominate the Diomedes by their great numbers are the Least 

 Awk and the Crested Awk. They breed practically on every spot of the 

 Little Diomede where there are stones or loose rocks or suitable places to 

 dig holes in the ground. They nest even among the stones of the natives 1 

 huts, and wherever I walked over stonelayers, whether it be along the beach 

 or on the topmost hills, I heard their whistling and screeching in all kinds 

 of tones beneath my feet for everv new step. 



Now the birds being so numerous it may be expected that the collect- 

 ing of a great number of eggs or young, on such a place, would be an easy 

 matter. But it certainly was anything but easy. It proved that the 

 birds breed so deep down in the loose rocks that their brood, in most cases, 

 was pretty safe from pursuers. I do not know how many times I tried to dig 

 down for these quaint bird homes (and only tried on the most favorable 

 looking places) by throwing away all the stones in my way, sooner or later 

 to be faced with some immense-sized rocks that told me my efforts were in 

 vain. Nevertheless, I succeeded in time in securing a limited number of 

 laid-over eggs, and young of these birds. 



The eggs were found on the naked rocks or damp clay, the under- 

 ground hollows being always wet and slippery by water overrunning down 

 the hillsides. 



