404 MODES OF HUNTING AND FISHING. 



not therefore remain In the seal's body, but can be used 

 again and again until the animal is exhausted. The second 

 way is the " clapper-hunt." If the Esquimaux find, or can 

 drive any seals into the creeks or inlets, they frighten them 

 by shouting, clapping, and throwing stones every time they 

 come up to breathe, until at last they are exhausted and easily 

 killed. In winter, when the sea is frozen, the seals, which 

 are obliged to come up from time to time for the sake of air, 

 keep open certain breathing holes for this purpose, and the 

 Esquimaux, when he has found one of these, waits patiently 

 till the seal makes its appearance, when he kills it instantly 

 with his harpoon. 



The Esquimaux are excellent deerstalkers, and are much 

 assisted by the skill with which they can imitate the cry of 

 the reindeer. Fish are caught sometimes with the hook 

 and line, sometimes by means of small nets when they come 

 to the shore in shoals to spawn, or finally with the spear. 

 The nets are made of "small hoops or rings of whalebone, 

 firmly lashed together with rings of the same material."* 

 The fishing-lines also are made of whalebone. t Salmon are 

 sometimes so abundant, that in Boothia Felix, Captain Ross 

 bought a ton weight for a single knife. For killing birds they 

 use an instrument in some respects like the "bolas" of South 

 America ; a number of stones or walrus teeth being fastened 

 to short pieces of string, and all the strings then tied together 

 at the other end.J The spears which are intended to be 

 thrown at birds or other small animals have a double fork at 

 the extremity, and three other barbed points near the middle. 

 These diverge in different directions, so that if the end pair 

 should miss, one of the central trio might strike the victim. 

 Aquatic birds are also caught in whalebone nooses; but "the 

 moulting season is the great bird harvest, as a few persons, 



* Parry, I.e. p. 100. f Egede, I.e. p. 107. J Simpson, I.e. p. 156. 



