132 THE ESKIMO ABOUT BERING STRAIT [RTH ANN. 18 
summer plumage appears about their necks. At this time they become 
extremely pugnacious and utter loud notes of challenge, which so excite 
other males within hearing that desperate battles ensue. The birds 
oceupy 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 L1, illustrates one of these fine-meshed ptarmigan 
nets, from St Michael. It is made of sinew cord, and is about 16 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 point 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 45354) 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, | 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 them 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 a the rivers 
flowing southward into Norton bay. 
