184 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. I28 



man Wilimovsky in 1949 and 1950. Data furnished by the writer will 

 be incorporated in Mr. Wilimovsky's report. 



I had hoped to locate some new source of food for the natives — 

 clams, shrimps, or perhaps some large fish that could be caught by 

 methods other than those employed by the Eskimos. At first it was 

 difficult to accept the statement by Eskimos that no large fish live in 

 the ocean at Point Barrow. (A number of large fishes inhabit the 

 rivers and lakes.) However, if large fish were present in the ocean 

 around Point Barrow, the whalers would have discovered them in 

 the hundred or more years they were whaling in that region even if 

 the Eskimos had not. After dredging and becoming acquainted with 

 the invertebrate fauna, it was realized that certain of the animals could 

 not exist in such large numbers, especially on the smooth mud bottom 

 where there is no refuge of any kind, if large, bottom-feeding fish 

 were present. Admiral Byrd told me that on his expeditions they 

 were never able to catch large food fish within the vicinity of the ice 

 fields of the South Polar regions. Large fish apparently have not been 

 able to adapt themselves to a temperature of — 1.8° C. 



The most abundant marine fish at Point Barrow, and the most im- 

 portant from an economic standpoint, is the Arctic cod, Boreogadus 

 saida (Lepechin). During the summer of 1948 these could be caught 

 at almost any time by going out to a large ice floe and fishing through 

 a crack in the ice. Fishing gear consisted of a wand or stick about 

 30 inches long, a piece of leader about the same length, and a small 

 hook of some kind. The Eskimos usually use a barbless hook con- 

 sisting of a small spatulate piece of ivory with a brass tack through 

 the distal end. Almost invariably cracks from 3 to 6 inches wide in a 

 large floe have Arctic cod swimming around in the water in them, 

 and several dozen can be caught within a short time. But these fish 

 form a precarious source of summer food because the possibility of 

 catching them in this manner depends upon the presence of large 

 ice floes. In the summers of 1949 and 1950 very few Arctic cod were 

 caught by the Eskimos, and laboratory personnel could not obtain 

 enough for physiological studies. But they were present in the off- 

 shore waters, as was evidenced by the fact that numerous individuals 

 washed ashore during storms. During the winter the Eskimos ob- 

 tain these fish by jigging for them in about 80 feet of water through 

 a hole in the ice. 



Another marine fish used by the natives is the capelin Mallotus 

 cafervarius (Pennant), a small fish about the size of a smelt that 

 comes to the very edge of the surf to lay its eggs but does not spawn 

 above the water as does the grunion along the coast of California. 



