XII.] 
CHUKCH DOGS. 
97 
masters. A piece of a whale, with the skin and part of the 
flesh adhering, washed out of frozen sandy strata thus lay 
untouched some thousand paces from Pitlekaj ; and the neigh¬ 
bourhood of the tents, where the hungry dogs were constantly 
wandering about, formed, as has been already stated, a favourite 
haunt for ptarmigan and hares during winter. Young dogs 
some months old are already harnessed along with the team in 
order that they may in time become accustomed to the draught 
tackle. During the cold season the dogs are permitted to live 
in the outer tent, the females with their young even in the 
inner. We had two Scotch collies with us on the Vega. They 
at flrst frightened the natives very much with their bark. 
To the dogs of Chukches they soon took the same superior 
standing as the European claims for himself in relation to the 
savage. The dog was distinctly preferred by the female Chukch 
canine population, and that too without the flghts to which 
such favour on the part of the fair commonly gives rise. A 
numerous canine progeny of mixed Scotch-Chukch breed has 
thus arisen at Pitlekaj. The young dogs had a complete 
resemblance to their father, and the natives were quite charmed 
with them. 
When a dog is to be killed the Chukch stabs it with his 
spear, and then lets it bleed to death. Even when the scarcity 
was so great that the natives at Pitlekaj and Yinretlen lived 
mainly on the food we gave them, they did not eat the dogs 
they killed. On the other hand they had no objection to eating 
a shot crow. 
When the Chukch goes out on the ice to hunt seals he takes 
his dogs with him, and it is these which take home the catch, 
commonly with the draught-line fastened directly to the head 
of the killed seal, which is then turned on its back and dragged 
over the ice without anything under it. One of the inhabi¬ 
tants of Yinretlen returned from the open water off the coast 
after a successful hunting expedition with five seals, of which 
VOL. II. 
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