598 SPRINGTIME ON THE YUKON. 
beetles frequently drop into the boat from the overhanging 
boughs finding a safe harbor in our collecting bottles. The 
species are numerous but the individuals few. Two or three 
Indians in their small, frail, birch canoes, accompany us, on 
their way to some small river flowing into the Yukon. 
There they will spend a week or two hunting the beaver, 
driven from his house by the rise of the spring floods. 
These dusky aborigines notice our eager capture of beetles, 
and such small game, with unconcealed amusement, but are 
keenly alive to the fact that good specimens will buy needles, 
caps, or tobacco, and regulate their actions accordingly. 
As we round a bare point where the sun shines warmly on 
the fragrant grass and the saxifrage is already in blossom, a 
flight of swallow-tailed butterflies (Papilio Turnus and P. 
Aliaska) come sailing along, and immediately all is exeite- 
ment. Paddles are wildly brandished in the air, the light 
eanoes dart swiftly hither and thither, and the unconscious 
insects, thus assailed, escape with a loss of half their num- 
ber. Then our Indian companions, with some incomprehen- 
sible wittieism passing between themselves, bring in the 
results of their foray, and so some eight or ten passable 
specimens are added to our collection at the expense of a 
few needles and half a dozen percussion caps. 
Away go the light canoes again, keeping admirable time 
with their paddles to a chant of which the following may be 
taken as a free translation : — 
Where is the salmon, the big chief salmon? 
| Hah? 
Hat Het Ha! Hah! Hah! 
His sides are scarlet, his tail i " mighty, 
Ha 
Ha! Het! I e! Ha! 
F uscious the steam i the kettle; 
Hunger flies, wh salmon 
Ric d sw: the tails of beaver, 
Fat the deer, in the summer " 
And the bear in mn; 
Better still is the vines fat salmon? 
Ho! Ho! Ho! Ha! Ha! Ha 
-and so on with an indefinite amount of interpolated chorus. 
A little break in the green bank, where a small stream 
