CXXII 
Fisn.. 
WHALE. 
Ka AysMis Ty Sie Gr Ay Th we As 
to infeéts, except lice and fleas, which are in all their quarters; and, filthy to 
relate! are eaten by thefe beaftly people *. Bugs are acquifitions of late years, 
imported into the bay of Awatcha. 
The fith of Kamt/chatka are with difficulty enumerated. There does not feem 
to be any great variety of genera; yet the individuals under each fpecies are 
found in moft aftonifhing abundance. Providence hath been peculiarly atten- 
tive to the natives of this peninfula, by furnithing them in fo ample a manner, 
who for the greater part muft for ever be deprived of fupport derived from 
grain and cattle. The vegetables they have are fufficient to correét the putrefcent 
quality of the dried fifh, and often form an ingredient in the difhes ; which are 
prepared different ways. The ‘fowkola is made of the falmon kind, cut into fix 
pieces, and dried either in the open air or fmoked: the roes are another difh in 
high efteem with them, either dried in the air, or rolled in the leaves of different 
plants, and dried before the fire. They can live along time on a fmall quantity of 
this food, and eat with it the bark of birch or willow trees, to affift them in 
{wallowing a food fo very vifcid ; but their ambrofial repaft is the Huigul, or fith 
flung into a pit till it is quite rotten, when it is ferved up in the ftate of carrion, 
and with a ftench unfupportable to every nofe but that of a Kamt/chatkan +. 
The Fin Whale, Br. Zool, iii. N° 18, is very frequent, and is of fingular ufe 
to the inhabitants. “They eat the flefh; preferve the fat for kitchen ufe and for 
their lamps; with the corneous lamine they few the feams of their canoes, and 
make nets for the larger fort of fifh; they form the fliders of their fledges with 
the under jaw-bones, and likewife work them into knives ; with the blade-bones, 
worked down to a fharp edge, they form fcythes, and moft fuccefsfully mow the 
grafs. The T/chut/ki verify the relation of Pliny t, and, like the Gedrofi of old, 
frame their dwellings wita the ribs §; with the ligaments they make excellent 
fnares for different animals; with the inteftines dried, cleaned, and blown, they 
make bags for their greafe and oil; and with the fkins the foles of their fhoes, and 
ftraps and thongs for various purpofes. The T/chut/ki take thefe animals by har- 
pooning ; the Oloutores, in nets made of thongs cut out of the fkins of the Wal- 
rus; and the Kamtfchatkans, by fhooting them with darts or arrows, the points of 
which, having been anointed with the juice of the Zgate; a {pecies of Anemone and 
Ranunculus |, are fo noxious as to bring fpeedy death from the flighteft wound, 
like the celebrated poifon of the Paragua Indians. The vaft animals in queftion, 
* Defer. Kamt[chatka, Fr. 507. + Hift. Kamt/chatka, Eng]. 194. Fr. 46. } Hift. Nat. 
lib. ix. c. 3. § Voyage, iii. 450. || I cannot difcover the fpecies. Gmelin, in his 
Flora Sibirica, does not give the left account of thefe plants. 
8 when 
