278 LIFE OF AUDUBON. 



and silver fox skins, and others in proportion. In the months 

 of November and December, and indeed until spring, they kill 

 seals in large numbers ; seventeen men belonging to their party 

 killed twenty-five hundred seals once in three days. This great 

 feat was done with short sticks, and each seal was killed with a 

 single blow on the snout, whilst lying on the edges of the 

 floating or field ice. The seals are carried home on sledges 

 di-awn by Esquimaux dogs, which are so well trained that, on 

 reaching home, they push the seals from the sledges with their 

 noses, and return to the killers with regular despatch. (This, 

 reader, is hearsay !) At other times the seals are driven into 

 nets, one after another, until the poor animals become so 

 hampered and confined, that they are easily and quickly dis- 

 patched with guns. The captain showed me a spot, within a 

 few yards of his log cabin, where last winter he caught six fine 

 large silver-gray , foxes. Bears and caraboos abound during 

 winter, and also wolves, hares, and porcupines. The wolves 

 are of a dun colour, very ferocious and daring ; a pack of tMrty 

 followed a man to his cabin, and they have several times killed 

 his dogs at his own door. I was surprised at this, because his 

 dogs were as large as any wolves I have ever seen. These dogs 

 are extremely tractable, so much so that, when geared into a 

 sledge, the leader immediately starts at the word of command 

 for any given course, and the whole pack gallop off at the rate 

 of seven or eight miles an hour. The Esquimaux dogs howl 

 like wolves, and are not at all like our common dogs. They 

 were extremely gentle, and came to us, and jumped on and 

 caressed us as if we were old acquaintances. They do not take 

 to the water, and are fit only for draught and the chase of 

 caraboos ; and they are the only dogs which can at all near the 

 caraboo while running. 



" As soon as winter storms and thick ice closes the harbours 

 and the intermediate spaces between the mainland and the sea 

 islands, the caraboos are seen moving on the ice in great herds, 

 first to the islands, where the snow is most likely to be drifted, 

 because there in the shallows— frqm which the snow has blown 



away he easily scrapes down to the mosses, which at this 



season are the only food they can find. As the severity of 

 winter increases, these animals follow the coast north-west, and 



