May 16, 1908.] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
775 
get to them. Two carcasses or “stinkers,” as 
they are called, were passed on Aug. 15, five- 
polar bears were seen on the cast side, of Nel 
son's Head, Baring Land, and another whaler 
spoken on same date had five freshly killed bears 
on board. Numerous seals and white whales 
were seen. During this voyage the Smoking 
Cliffs were passed. They are close to the sea, 
about 200 feet in height, and smoke issues from 
crevices along their face. 
In 1907 eight ships were engaged in whaling. 
Six went out with following catches: 15, 1, 4, 
1, 4, 0. respectively. One wintering at Hersche! 
Island had one whale, and the eighth vessel with 
no whales, left to winter at Prince Albert Land. 
Game and Fish. 
Seal and white whales are plentiful about the 
island and form the chief food of the natives. 
Ogg-a-rook are also reported plentiful. What 
they are I do not know. Fish do not appear to 
be plentiful. 
Sheep appear to be plentiful in mountains on 
the mainland south of Herschel, as eighty-nine 
had been killed by the natives up to Nov. 21. 
Caribou are plentiful sometimes, scarce at other 
times. Ptarmigan are scarce. Fur very scarce. 
. Geese and ducks abound in season, especially 
in the spring. A sand spit on the southwest end 
of the island is a favorite spot. In the spring of 
1898 a number of wrecked sailors were at Point 
Barrow in semi-starvation, and the commander 
of a U. S. Revenue cutter commissioned an 
officer of a whaler to provide geese and ducks 
for food for these sailors. On the sand spit 
mentioned he shot 1,132 birds in three days. In 
spring, of 1907, about 1,800 birds were shot on 
the same spit. An entry shows eight ducks as 
shot on Oct. 8. No mention is made as to kinds 
of geese or ducks. Nothing is said of muskox, 
except that some men from a whaler landed at 
Point Killet, Baring Land, and found remains 
of these animals scattered around recent fires 
made by natives. Deer are reported to be plen¬ 
tiful on Bank’s Land. 
Natives. 
Residing on, or visiting, Herschel are two 
bands of natives, the Nunatalmutes who live 
mostly on the mainland, and the Kogmollicks or 
shore Indians. The former live mostly on sheep, 
deer, fish, etc., on the mainland, the latter on 
seal, white whale and other products of the 
deep. They have good whale boats, fish and 
seal nets, etc. They are described as a very 
honest people, good natured and very fond of 
their children. They hold religious services 
every Sunday. They play football and baseball, 
and do so when the mercury registers 25 below. 
There has been no crime among them, and they 
are as a rule healthy. Injuries from frost bites 
appear to be the commonest ills. 
A wedding was recently held on the island. 
The bride is described as very comely, about 
seventeen years old, and the bridegroom was 
her fourth partner. She had lost both her feet 
three winters previously from frost bite at 
Baillie Island. The guests, about fifty in num¬ 
ber, assembled in an igaloo ten by twelve, and 
the wedding feast consisted of whale and seal 
meat and frozen rotten fish. The narrator of 
this episode was invited to the feast, accepted, 
and got as far as tlie door, but could not face 
the music and retired gracefully. 
There would appear to be many natives to 
the eastward and northward from Herschel, who 
have perhaps never seen, or been seen by, a 
white man. None have been seen by the whalers 
on Baring Land or Bank’s Land, but they are 
there, as marks of their recent fires have been 
found. One whaler wintered at Prince Albert 
Land in 1S95-96, and among the natives seen by 
them there was only one old woman who had 
seen a white man before. The natives report 
that the old English man-of-war, the Investi¬ 
gator, a wooden corvette, which was frozen in 
in Mercy Bay, Bank’s Land, in September, 1851, 
is still there intact and in good condition. 
This enormous area of land and sea lying 
north of our continent, almost unknown to the 
civilized world, is a region full of mystery, 
about which there is yet much to learn. It is 
desolate and repellant for the most part, and 
for a major portion of each year is shut up tight 
in an icy barrier that no one so far has suc- 
ceeced in forcing to any extent. Yet the very 
READY TO GO. 
want of knowledge of this unknown region 
makes one wish the more to be better acquainted 
with it, and for a man with robust health and 
ample means it would appear to be a most fas¬ 
cinating way to spend a few years of his life 
in a systematic and intelligent exploration of 
these unknown lands and seas. 
J. H. McIllree. 
Pennsylvania Game. 
I- rom the report of Dr. Joseph Kalbfus, chief 
game protector of the game commission of 
Pennsylvania, the following is taken: 
I am satisfied that all wild birds other than 
game birds have been very materially increased 
during the past year* and that we bad many 
more summer birds in Pennsylvania during the 
past season, than for many years. The shooting 
of this class of birds by small boys, and their 
persecution through the robbing -of nests by the 
same class, has, to a very great extent, been 
done away with. Not only because the small 
boy fears the punishment that very frequently 
follows depredations of this character, but be¬ 
cause lie has learned and is learning the worth 
of birds, and derives a pleasure through the 
protection, and care, and study of birds, that 
far exceeds the pleasure he derives through their 
destruction. Many of our people other than 
the small boy are taking an interest in this sub¬ 
ject, that in my opinion portends much good tc 
our birds. 
Of our game birds my report will not be 
found so flattering. While we have in this 
State a fair number of non-migratory game 
birds, such as ruffed grouse, quail and turkey, 
and enough with good conditions surrounding 
breeding next year to make these birds fairly 
plentiful, we have not had anything like the 
number of these birds that I hoped we would 
have, basing my calculations on the large num¬ 
ber of birds left over at the close of last season, 
which I believe was in number in the neighbor¬ 
hood of the very best showing this State could 
have made at the beginning of any season for 
many years prior to that time. 
In my opinion the appropriation made by the 
last session of the Legislature for the payment 
of bounties upon certain animals is money well 
applied. The only trouble being, as I see it, 
that the appropriation is not sufficient to meet 
demands, and that the list of animals as named 
in the act is not comprehensive enough. If it 
is just to place a bounty on the fox this list 
should have added to it at least the house-cat, 
tjian which there is no greater destroyer of 
bird life in the world; and the two birds known 
as the great horned owl and the goshawk. 
What I have said about the grouse and the 
wild turkey applies to our quail, so far as it 
goes, but does not entirely cover his conditions 
and needs. While the turkey and the grouse 
may be able to battle succesfully with the snows 
and storms and to subsist fairly well from food 
gathering in the treetops, the quail is not able to 
do this and is doomed to collect his food upon the 
ground or to die. A battle for a month or six 
weeks in the snow cannot fail to reduce the 
weight of this little bird fully one-third. Fol¬ 
low this with a day or so of cold rain, follow this 
again with a freeze, and sees the end of Bob 
White. Wet and bedraggled, with no food in 
his stomach, he is quickly chilled to the bone, 
and the end of his journey reached. 
Migratory birds, such as the woodcock and 
snipe of various kinds, have not appeared to 
be as plentiful during the last spring and last 
fall as in former years. In my opinion, they 
are rapidly passing, as did the wild pigeon, to 
absolute extinction. Harassed and pursued, 
driven from post to pillar, from August to May, 
from Maine and the Provinces to Florida and 
