276 THE POINT BARROW ESKIMO. 
While they are very particular in all superstitious observances re- 
garding the whales, they are less careful about certain things, such as 
loud talking and firing guns at seals and fowl when they are wait- 
ing for whales, which really hurt their chances with the timid animals. 
They are less energetic than one would suppose in pursuit of the whale, 
according to Capt. Herendeen, who spent several days each season with 
the whaleboats. Instead of cruising about the lead in search of whales 
they are rather inclined to lie in wait for them at the edge of the floe, 
so that when the open water is wide many whales escape. 
When the leads are very narrow the whales are sometimes shot with 
the bombgun from the edge of the ice. Success in this appears to be 
variable. In 1882 only one small whale was secured, and in 1883 one 
full-grown one, though several were struck and lost each season. The 
veteran whaling-master, Capt. L. C. Owen, informs me that one season 
the boats of these two villages captured ten. The season of 1885 was 
very successful. The natives of the two villages are reported to have 
taken twenty-eight whales. Capt. E. E. Smith, however, informs me 
that only seven of these were full-grown. 
When actually engaged in whaling the umialik exercises a very fair 
degree of discipline, but at other times he seems hardly able to keep 
his men from straggling off to go home or to visit their seal nets, ete., 
so that he sometimes has to chase a whale “short-handed.” 
Nowhere else among the Eskimo does the whale fishery appear to be 
conducted in such regular manner with formally organized crews as 
upon this northwest coast. From all accounts the animal is only cas- 
ually pursued elsewhere with fleets of kaiaks or umiaks manned by 
volunteer crews.! 
The beluga or white whale is only casually pursued, and as far as | 
could learn is always shot with the rifle. It is not abundant. 
Fowl.—During the winter months a few ptarmigan are occasionally 
shot, but the natives pay no special attention to birds until the spring 
migrations. The first ducks appear a little later than the whales, about 
the end of April or the first week of May, and from that time till the 
middle of June searcely a day passes when they are not more or less 
plenty. The king ducks (Somateria spectabilis) are the first to appear, 
while the Pacifie eiders (S. v-nigra) arrive somewhat later, and are 
more abundant towards the end of the migrations. At this season all 
women and children, and many men, go armed with the bolas, and 
everybody is always on the lookout for flocks of ducks. On four or five 
favorable days each season, at intervals of a week or ten days, there 
are great flights of eiders coming up in huge flocks of two or three hun- 
dred, stretched out in long diagonal lines. These flocks follow one 
another in rapid succession and keep the line of the coast, apparently 
striking straight across Peard Bay from the Seahorse Islands to a point 
lSee Egede, Greenland, p. 102; Crantz, History of Greenland, Vol. 1, p. 121; Parry, 2d. Voy., p. 509 
(Iglulik); McClure, Northwest Passage, p. 92 (Cape Bathurst). 
