134 The Carnivora. 
is a true and worthy chip of the old block!” Carlo fared 
well at supper that night, and I could undertake to name 
one gentleman present who would have been only too proud 
to have been “within measurable distance” of the caresses 
bestowed by a certain charming young lady on that highly- 
favoured dog. 
In a lecture delivered by Dr. John Rae at the London 
Institution in 1884, on Arctic Exploration, he described a 
remarkable instance of the value of the Eskimo dog to his 
master by the exercise of his keen scent in circumstances 
which must be most unfavourable. The arctic seals have a 
number of breathing holes in tbe ice, which they visit at 
short intervals. These holes are made while the ice is quite 
thin and kept open by constant use. As the ice thickens, 
the snow accumulates above them and completely obliterates 
all trace of them to the eye, a hole in the snow scarcely 
larger than a threepenny piece being the only communication 
the animal beneath has with the air. When it wants to 
breathe, the seal comes up and places its nostrils against the 
opening in the ice, when its warm breath thaws any slight accu- 
mulation of snow that may have fallen since its last visit. 
If the Eskimo knows of one of these holes, he approaches 
stealthily, poises his spear or harpoon directly over the spot, 
and drives it straight into. the seal’s brain, after which the 
quarry is secured by cutting away the ice above it. The 
Eskimo dog is continually on the search for these breathing 
places, and on finding one, stands like a terrier at a rabbit’s 
hole if the seal is “at home,” and attracts his master to 
the spot. Thinking that possibly the dog was guided in his 
discovery by some slight gurgling of water, or the sound of 
the seal’s breathing—as one may often hear the air emitted 
from the lungs with a kind of snort by seals in captivity 
on rising to the surface—I asked Dr. Rae what his 
opinion was, and he answered that he had never heard the 
seals emit any sound at their breathing holes, and believed 
the dog discovered them solely by his sense of smell. 
