43 
The occurrence of seals, in considerable number, in winter time, at 
the water-holes in the ice of upper Cumberland sound presents some 
puzzling features. These water-holes result from the action of the tide; 
individually they are not large and they are separated from one another 
by long distances. Some of them are frequented by a considerable number 
of seals, especially during flood tide when the animals are easily shot and 
harpooned. But, though a comparatively large number of seals may, in 
a short time, be killed at any one water-hole and the supply may, apparently, 
be exhausted, yet in a few days or weeks the supply may be found replenished. 
How the second and succeeding lots of seals reach the water-holes is not 
known. The original lots are supposed to resort to these water-holes 
from the beginning of winter. 
The ringed seal was found in fair numbers at most of the water- 
holes in Nettilling fiord in the spring of 1925 and in January and February, 
1926. At the Kognung water-hole or “sarbuk”, fifteen seals were shot in 
January, 1926. At a small water-hole 7 miles east, eleven seals were 
taken in one afternoon. These sarbuks were worked until the supply of 
seals was exhausted for the time being, but in March they again yielded 
a number of seals. The animals were quite common at the “sarbukjuak” 
(the great water-hole) of Nettilling fiord, but were scarce at some of the 
sarbuks on the detour route via Kassigidjen, although in fair numbers at 
other water-holes only a few miles away. The Nauyarping sarbuks are 
usually well stocked, but the large sarbuk 5 miles north of these has very 
few seals. The thirty to forty seals obtained by the party in this region 
during January and February, 1926, were all ringed seals and nearly all 
were small, averaging in weight between 75 and 100 pounds. 
Natives say that ringed seals occur in Tarionnittuk lake, a big lake 
south of Kaggilartung fiord. The lake is said to be perfectly fresh 
except for a small area near the exit, which receives a small amount of 
salt water at spring tides by way of the short river draining the lake. 
J. C. Ross (1835, p. 94) reports the occurrence of ringed seals at Port 
Bowen. Kumlien (1879, p. 55) writes that the species is very common in 
the fiords and bays along the coast from Hudson strait northward to the 
head of Cumberland sound, on the outer islands about cape Mercy, and 
north along Davis Strait shore. Low (1906, p. 279) states that it is the 
common seal of all coasts. Iiantzsch (1913, pp. 157-160) writes that it 
is the common seal at Blacldead island and that it is numerous in Nettilling 
fiord. In an entry dated June 21, 1910, he says: “Daily from our arrival 
at the lake (Nettilling) in weather to some degree favourable, some animals 
observed upon the ice at some distance from the land. They have breath- 
ing-holes just like Phoca hispida which, according to the statements of the 
Eskimos, they completely resemble.” He took two adults, a male and a 
female, on June 25. Hantzsch lists, with a query, the Nettilling Lake 
seals as a species of Phoca distinct from hispida. Allen and Copeland 
(1924, p. 8) state that the MacMillan expedition brought three skulls of 
this species, collected in June at Bowdoin harbour. In the summer of 
1926, the present writer saw many ringed seals along Hudson Strait coast 
between Amadjuak bay, cape Dorset, and Bowdoin harbour. 
The first of the young of hispida, born in 1925, taken on Pangnirtung 
fiord, was secured on March 18. This specimen, No, 5746 cf, is 615 mm. 
long and from the tip of the nose to end of flippers measures 750 mm. The 
entire coat is of soft, woolly hair an inch long. The upper and underparts 
