FOREST AND STREAM. 
609 
Oct. 17, 1908.] 
tended to a depth of 150 or 200 feet. These 
traveled in a different direction to that of the small 
blocks, showing that the surface current varied 
! from that of the deeper water. The ice got still 
thicker and L. and I turned back. D. and Has- 
selborg returned to camp some hours after us. 
They had chanced on a small island where they 
found gulls breeding. A few days later D. and 
Hasselborg tried it again in the canoe, camping 
over night on the islet and next day succeeded 
in getting to Marble Island, the ice having 
thinned somewhat. They found pelagic cor¬ 
morants, glaucous-winged gulls and horned puf¬ 
fins breeding there. Many gulls bred on the 
Beardslee Islands and the Indians systematically 
took their eggs for food. A few tufted puffins 
also bred there, burrowing in the upper edge 
of gravel cliffs. I opened several burrows, find¬ 
ing no eggs and only one young bird, which 
looked like a ball of black down. 
July fourth was .a quiet day. We celebrated 
it by making ice cream, using condensed milk 
and ice broken from a small berg floating near 
camp. L. sat under an umbrella to stir the 
cream, as rain was falling as usual. The weather 
never became warm. The thermometer regist¬ 
ered 45 degrees to 50 degrees at night, rarely 
reaching 60 degrees in the day time except on 
clear days, when it sometimes registered 65 de¬ 
grees. 
Near our camp a party of Indians had a sum¬ 
mer camp. They were catching salmon. We 
bought salmon trout of them, as we preferred 
them to the larger salmon. 
Early one morning two of the Indians came 
to our camp to borrow a rifle, saying that their 
dogs were after a bear across the creek. I lenj: 
them my rifle and L. and Hasselborg went with 
them. The dogs had been after the bear some 
hours and they were some distance back in the 
forest. The bear proved to be a female accom¬ 
panied by her cub. The Indians and L. found 
her in a thicket, Hasselborg having gone to 
where some of the dogs were baying the cub. 
Suddenly the old bear charged. The Indians 
ran without trying to shoot it. L. stepped be¬ 
hind a tree and the bear passed within fifteen 
feet. L. is one of the best snap shots with a 
rifle that I ever knew. He shot the bear as she 
passed him, rolling her over, but she immediately 
got up, requiring two more shots to finish her. 
Hasselborg tried to catch the cub alive, but 
could not hold it and finally one of the Indians 
shot it. It weighed about forty pounds and was 
dark brown, while the female was light yellowish 
brown, very different from the bears of Ad¬ 
miralty and Chichagoff islands in color and of 
a different species. 
On July 11 the launch went to Hoonah for 
mail, this being the only postoffice within a hun¬ 
dred miles. With the mail came a message urg¬ 
ing Miss Alexander to come home on account 
of sickness in her family. She left immediately 
to catch the next mail steamer which was nearly 
due. L. also decided to go home. The remainder 
of the party went across to the western shore 
of Glacier Bay for a few days. There we ob¬ 
tained some marmots and D. added two young 
rough-legged hawks to his menagerie. He had 
taken three young duck falcons from their nest 
at Hasselborg River and was rearing them. 
They made fine pets and we were much in¬ 
terested in watching the difference in habits and 
actions of these two species. We fed them with 
the bodies of the birds and small mammals 
skinned in making specimens. At this camp we 
found the mosquitoes very troublesome and had 
to work under netting while preparing specimens. 
On the 20th we moved across to Idaho Inlet, 
Chichagoff Island, but stayed there only four 
days, as it proved a poor collecting station. 
From there we went to Port Frederic again, 
camping near the head of the bay. 
One day we climbed to the • summit of the 
Our next station was Rodman Bay, on the 
northern end of Baranoff Island. Hasselborg 
had been there two years previously and was 
confident that he could find plenty of bears, but 
the caretaker of the mining property told us 
that sixteen bears had been killed around the 
bay within a year. This had thinned them out 
greatly. However, Hasselborg got one medium 
sized male. This was the first bear we had from 
this island, and as it seemed to differ somewhat 
DEAD SALMON IN THE MOUTH OF A CREEK. 
mountain back of camp, altitude 2,700 feet. The 
day was clear and the view grand. The snow 
was gone from the ridges and southern slopes. 
Southwest of us across a canon was a small 
glacier, the only one that we saw on Chichagoff 
Island. The antlers of a buck killed on the 
mountain were still in the velvet. 
Our next camp was at Hawk Inlet, Admiralty 
Island. Hasselborg went off, camped by him¬ 
self, and killed another bear. Like most really 
good hunters Hasselborg never had much to say 
about his own exploits, but this time he was in 
such a good humor that we got the story from 
him. He had used up all the cartridges in camp 
that fitted his rifle, a .32 special, and was using 
one of ours, a .45-70 half magazine, holding five 
cartridges. It seems he had found a fresh trail 
and was following it up a mountain side through 
thick timber obstructed with many fallen trees. 
He caught sight of some dark object under the 
root of a fallen tree a hundred yards above him 
and concluded that it was a sleeping bear. He 
fired and a bear rushed out and bounded down 
the hill toward him. Hasselborg fired rapidly 
until he emptied his gun and the bear was still 
coming. He hurriedly took four cartridges from 
his pocket, dropping two of them while getting 
the other two in the magazine. The next shot 
at twenty feet stopped the bear. He hit it again 
with the other bullet, then ran off a little dis¬ 
tance and filled his magazine. The bear was 
dead, though. Five bullets had hit her. One, 
apparently the first, had struck the side of her 
face under the eye, passed along the neck, lungs 
and bowels and lodged in the hin, yet she had 
vitality enough to attempt an attack. A few 
days later Hasselborg killed a male bear near 
the same place. 
from those previously taken, we wished to get 
more. Hasselborg advised moving further west 
and accordingly we shifted camp twenty miles 
to a cove in Peril Strait northeast of Sergius 
Narrows. We remained at this station a week. 
Hasselborg prospected in all directions for bear, 
but found few signs. Strassell shot several wil¬ 
low ptarmigan on low ground near camp. This 
proved to be the best place for littoral shells 
that we found and my wife obtained a large 
number of species. 
The stormy season was approaching and the 
rainfall became heavier. We were anxious to 
get away and decided to leave Hasselborg there 
with the canoe and a camp outfit to hunt bear 
another month around the shores of Peril Strait, 
when he could catch the little steamer than ran 
between Sitka and Juneau. After we left he 
killed an old bear and two cubs. 
We began the return voyage to Seattle Aug. 
20. The weather became stormy and we laid 
over several times to wait for better weather, 
working our way leisurely to Ketchekan, where 
a custom house is located. We cleared from 
there Sept. 18. 
At the present writing the material obtained 
by the expedition has not been critically ex¬ 
amined, but we feel sure that among the birds 
are three or four undescribed forms and that 
there are some new species of small mammals. 
The impression gradually grew on my mind that 
the relationship of the small mammals of the 
islands was with British Columbian species 
rather than with those of the adjacent Alaskan 
mainland, but close comparisons may disprove 
this. Although the launch was not comfortable 
and the weather was damp, we all greatly en¬ 
joyed the summer’s work. 
