26 
MuLTITUDES 
IN 
Hupson’s Bay. 
MicraTion. 
Uses. 
Crass. 
RR EE IN: 
excellent blankets. "The tendons are their bow-ftrings, and when 
fplit are the threads with which they few their jackets *. 
The Greenlanders, before they acquired the knowlege of the gun, 
caught them by what was called the clapper-hunt +. The women and 
children furrounded a large fpace, and; where people were wanting, 
fet up poles capped with a turf in certain intervals, to terrify the ani- 
mals ; they then with great noife drove the Reins into the narrow 
defiles, where the men lay in wait and killed them with harpoons or 
darts. But they are now become very fcarce. 
Onthe contrary, they arefound in the neighborhood of Hud/ou’s Bay 
in moft amazing numbers, columns of eight or ten thoufand are feen 
annually paffing from north to fouth in the months of March and 
April t, driven out of the woods by the mufketoes, feeking refrefh- 
ment on the fhore, anda quiet place to drop their young. They go 
to rut in September, and the males foon after fhed their horns ; they 
are at that feafon very fat, but fo rank and mufky as not to be eat- 
able. The females drop their young in Fuze, in the moft fequeftered 
fpots they can find; and then they likewife lofe their horns. Beafts 
of prey follow the herds: firft, the Wolves, who fingle out the ftrag- 
glers (for they fear to attack the drove) detach and hunt them down: 
the Foxes attend at a diftance, to pick up the offals left by the former. 
In autumn the Deer with the Fawns re-migrate northward. 
The Indians are very attentive to their motions; for the Rein forms 
the chief part not only of their drefs but food. They often kill multi- 
tudes for the fake of their tongues only ; but generally they feparate 
the flefh from the bones, and preferve it by drying it in the fmoke : 
they alfo fave the fat, and fell it to the Exglifh in bladders, who ufe 
it in frying inftead of butter. The fkins are alfo an article of com- 
merce, and ufed in London by the Breeches-makers. 
The Indians fhoot them in the winter. The Englifh make hedges, 
with ftakes and boughs of trees, along the woods, for five miles in 
* Drage’s voy. i. 256 + Crantz,1. 71. t Dobbs, 19, 22. 
length 
