XL] 
‘^LEADS’’ FORMED. 
47 
specimen of which was sold to us on the 9th March by a 
Chukch, who said he had killed it at a clearing off the coast.’' 
After the arrival of the migratory birds hunting excursions 
began to form a welcome interruption in our monotonous winter 
life, and the produce of the hunting a no less agreeable change 
from the preserved provisions. The Chukches besides offered 
us daily a large number of different kinds of birds, especially 
when they observed that we paid a higher price for many rare 
kinds of birds, though small and of little use for food, than for 
a big, fat goose. The Chukches killed small birds either by 
throwing stones, or by shooting them with bow and arrows, in 
connection with which it may be observed that most of them 
were very poor archers. They also caught them with whale¬ 
bone snares set on bare spots on the beach, generally between 
two vertebra of the whale. For pebbles are very scarce, but 
the bones of the whale are found, as has been already stated, at 
most places in large numbers on the strand-banks where the 
tents are pitched. In June we began to get eggs of the gull, 
eider, long-tailed duck, goose, and loom, in sufficient number for 
table use. The supply, however, was by no means so abundant 
as during the hatching season on Greenland, Spitzbergen, or 
Novaya Zemlya. 
A little way from the vessel there were formed, in the end of 
May, two “leads,” a few fathoms in breadth. On the 31st May 
I sent some men to dredge at these places. They returned 
with an abundant yield, but unfortunately the openings closed 
again the next day, and when I, and Lieutenant Bove visited 
the place there was a large, newly-formed toross thrown up along 
the edge of the former channel. Another “ lead ” was formed 
some days after, but closed again through a new disturbance of 
the position of the ice, a high ice-rampart, formed of loose 
blocks, heaped one over another, indicating the position of the 
