No. 382.] ANIMALS OF NORTHWESTERN ALASKA. 729 
they occasionally saw the animals. They are, however, very 
rare, as we saw or heard of none during our stay. 
Polar bears were by no means so abundant about Point 
Barrow as might be expected, and they appeared to confine 
themselves almost entirely to the ice field at some distance 
from the shore. Only one of u$ was lucky enough to see a 
bear, just making his escape into the moving ice, pursued by 
all the dogs and half the men and women of the village. The 
seal hunters shot several bears while we were there, and once 
or twice during the winter hungry bears came into the village, 
attracted by the stores of seal meat, and were immediately 
surrounded and shot. As a rule, however, they were exceed- 
ingly anxious to escape when they encountered men or dogs, 
and we only heard of one or two that showed fight or came to 
bay. The bears killed in winter were beautifully clean and 
white, but in summer they grew very dirty and brown. There 
is a real brown bear, which they sometimes killed inland on the 
rivers, and they showed us several robes which were the color 
of the cinnamon bear. It is probably the barren ground bear 
(Ursus richardsoni). 
hough the wolf (Canis lupus griseoalbus) was well known 
to the natives, who highly prized the fur for trimming their 
deerskin garments, it seldom or never appeared on the coast, 
but was confined to the reindeer country, where, according to 
the natives, it was very abundant, pursuing the deer in packs. 
In the same region they occasionally captured red or black 
foxes (Vulpes fulvus fulvus and V. f. argentatus), though most 
of the skins of these animals in their possession were obtained 
by trade from the Eskimos whom they met at the Colville 
River, as were also the skins of the wolverine. The tail of the 
latter animal is a very important article to the Eskimos of the 
northwest, for fashion insists that every man shall wear one 
attached to his girdle behind. If a wolverine’s tail is not to be 
had, the bushy tail of a dog or fox is worn, but it is not 
considered so fashionable. 
Every male must also wear dangling from the back of the 
jacket, between the shoulders, the skin of an ermine, though 
this perhaps was more a kind of amulet or porte-bonheur than 
