ARCTIC AND OTHER DRAUGHT DOGS. 
so often crossed, his facility, noticeable even 
in imported specimens of his kind, in picking 
the flesh from a fish as cleanly as if the bones 
had been scraped by a surgical instrument. 
One wonders if dogs bred in civilisation 
would lose this facility. They are irregular 
in their feeding, and are content if they get 
a good meal thrice a week, and for lack of 
better food they will devour almost anything, 
from a chunk of wood to a coil of tar rope, 
their own leather harness, or a pair of 
greasy trousers. In the severest Arctic 
weather they do not suffer from the cold, 
but they are subject to diseases uncommon 
in civilised kennels. Paralysis of the legs, 
and convulsions, are deplorably frequent, 
but the worst complaint is the epidemic 
madness which seems to attend them during 
the season of protracted darkness. True 
rabies are unknown among the Eskimo and 
Indian dogs, and no one bitten by an afflicted 
dog has ever contracted the disease. 
Characteristic of the Eskimo dog is the 
MR. H. C. BROOKE'S FAMOUS ESKIMO 
ARCTIC KING. 
fact that each team has its king, who is 
not always the strongest, but usually the 
most unscrupulous bully and tyrant. In 
North Greenland a marriage between a dog 
and a bitch of this breed is binding for life. 
They are monogamous, and any interference 
with the sanctity of the marriage tie results 
in a fight to the death. 
67 
529 
The ordinary load taken over good ground 
by a team of six Eskimo dogs is 800 Ib., 
at a rate of seven miles an hour. The speed 
necessarily depends upon the ground, the 
weight of the sledge, and the condition of 
the dogs. Kane was carried for seven hundred 
miles at a rate of fifty seven miles a day, but 
the record speed of a dog sledge was made 
in the rescue of a sailor in Lieutenant 
Schwatka’s expedition. The man was seen 
WEST SIBERIAN (OSTIAK) SLEDGE DOG. 
IMPORTED WITH OTHERS FOR ANTARCTIC EXPEDITION. 
Photograph by W. P. Dando, F.Z.S. 
at a distance of ten miles across an 
ice-covered bay, just before nightfall. 
To leave him there involved his death 
from frostbite, and two Eskimo na- 
tives with a double team of forty 
dogs were sent to fetch him. The 
runners were “iced” and the men 
armed with knives to cut adrift any 
dog who might lose his footing, and 
be dragged to death, for there was no 
stopping when once started. They did the 
ten miles in twenty-two and a half minutes. 
Probably the dogs employed for draught 
in Northern America are generally more 
expert at their work than those used by the 
Arctic explorers. The Hudson Bay hauling 
dogs have been known to do more than 2,000 
