MAMMALS OF NOETHEKN CANADA 231 



day again, however, in the not distant future, when the Hud- 

 son Bay Route, now so much decried by many eastern and by 

 a few western "unbelievers," shall have become an accom- 

 plished and successful navigable ocean waterway between 

 Canada and Europe, the Imperial Government may consider 

 it advisable to rebuild upon the ruins of the old a new and 

 impregnable " Fort Prince of Wales.") 



Beaeded Seal — Erignathus harhatus (Erxleben). 



Although we received no whole skins of this species at 

 Fort Anderson, we had every reason to believe that it is an 

 inhabitant of the northern ocean. It is common in Hudson 

 Bay and Strait and along the Alaskan coast from Bristol 

 Bay northward. Ross observed it in Boothia, and it has 

 also been met with by other Arctic explorers, including 

 N'ares, and Greely obtained several specimens. The latter 

 gives latitude 81° 46' north as the highest point where an 

 example (8 feet 2j4 inches in length and weighing 640 

 poimds, gross) was secured. He considers it a summer 

 visitor so far north. McClintock mentions that the Dane, 

 Peterson, shot an example in Bellot Strait which weighed 

 500 pounds, and that its flesh was preferable to that of the 

 smaller seals. The Eskimos who resorted to Fort Anderson 

 made Tise of the parchment-dressed skins of this species for 

 their canoes, and occasionally also for their women's boats, 

 instead of that of the walrus. They heartily enjoy partak- 

 ing of its flesh and oil, no matter how rank it may become 

 iby keeping. They can and do eat raw meat and fish; but 

 during the summer season, as well as when living in their 

 winter huts on the coast, they cook the former, and the latter 

 also when fresh, much in the same way as do Indians and 

 others. During our five years' sojourn at Fort Anderson 

 we received large quantities of sun-dried reindeer tongues 

 and venison, in excellent shape for consumption, from the 

 river Eskimos. 



