shot of a seal when basking upon the ice; yet Ninoo catches them with his own paws; and the Innuits, taught by him, come within the distance of a spear's cast.

The way Ninoo goes to work at seal-hunting upon the ice, according to Innuit accounts, is this: He sees far away upon the ice a black spot, which he knows to be a seal resting at the edge of his hole, and taking a succession of "cat naps," hardly ten seconds long, lifting up his head between times, and narrowly surveying the whole horizon. Ninoo flings himself upon his side, and creeps along when the seal's head is down. The moment the seal's head is raised the bear stops short, and begins "talking" to the seal. The sound which he utters is quite distinct from his ordinary voice. The seal is charmed, suspects no harm, and down goes his head for another nap. Forward goes. Ninoo, and so on for a long time, until he gets within leaping distance; then one spring, and it is all over with Nutchook. The Innuits say that if they could only talk to Nutchook as cleverly as Ninoo does, they would catch more seals. The Innuit imitates Ninoo.

Hall describes one of these hunts, the main actor being an Innuit named Koojesse: "Koojesse had 'talk' with seals, and it was with great interest that I watched him. He lay down on one side, and crawled by hitches or jerks towards his victim; then as the seal raised its head Koojesse would stop, and commenced pawing with his right hand and foot, while he uttered his 'sealtalk.' On this the seal would feel a charm, raise and shake its flippers both fore and aft, and roll over on its side and back as if perfectly delighted; after

this it would drop its head to sleep. Then Koojesse would hitch along till the seal's head would pop up again, which usually occurred every few moments." In this particular case the seal escaped, for the Innuit had approached too near, and had thus broken the charm.

In the winter, when the seal lives under the ice, its capture requires great

skill and perseverance. She, for somehow the male seal seems now not to be noticed, has a breathing-hole through the ice, to which she must come now and then for air. Upon the surface of the solid ice, which is covered with snow, the prospective mother constructs an igloo for her progeny. She scrapes off the snow until she has formed a dome, carrying away the snow down. through the hole in the ice. Upon the shelf of ice surrounding the hole the young one is born, and there it is regularly visited by the mother. None but very keen-scented animals, such as the bear, fox, and dog, can discover such an igloo. The dog sometimes captures a seal. Hall describes such an event: "Ebierbing had one day been out with dogs and sledge where the ice was still firm, when suddenly a seal was noticed ahead. In an instant the dogs were off towards the prey, drawing the sledge after them at a marvellous rate. The seal for a moment acted as if frightened, and kept on the ice a second or two too long, for just as he plunged, Smile, the best seal and bear dog I ever saw, caught him by the tail and flippers. The

SEAL-HOLE AND IGLOO.

seal struggled violently, and so did Smile; but in a moment more the other dogs laid hold, and aided in dragging the seal out of his hole, when Smile took it in charge. The prize was secured wholly by the dogs."

Dogs seem to hunt the seal only upon their master's account; but the fox and the bear capture him for themselves. How the fox contrives to get into a seal igloo we are not told; but as they manage to break open the best packed provision-cases, we may assume that they know how to commit burglary upon the igloo of a poor seal. If the Innuits are to be believed, the way the bear goes to work is this: When he has scented out the precise position of an igloo he goes back a little distance, so as to get a good run; and then, giving a high leap, comes down

with all his weight upon the roof of the dome, crushes it in, and with his paw seizes the young seal, who was quietly asleep upon the ice-shelf. The cunning bear is not always satisfied with the little infant seal, but uses it as a bait to catch its mother. Having caught the young one, and holding it fast by the hind flippers, the bear scrapes away all the snow, and lets the young seal paddle about in the water; its cries draw the mother to the hole, and within reach of the bear's paw, when one grab is given, and the anxious mother is secured. At all events the Innuits practise this sort of strategy with the seal, and they declare that they have learned it from the bear.

The bear is to the Innuits the embodiment of all wisdom. They tell stories of his sagacity which are hard to believe. Thus they say that when he sees a walrus basking upon the ice at the foot of a high cliff, he mounts to the summit of the cliff, and picking up a big stone flings it down with perfect aim upon the head of the walrus and crushes its thick skull. If it should happen that the walrus is only stunned, the bear crawls down the cliff, picks up a stone, and with it hammers away at the head of the walrus until the skull is broken. This story of the Innuits needs confirmation, though Hall seems to credit it.

The dog is essential to the existence of the Innuits. As they have never domesticated the reindeer, without the dog they could not travel from place to place, which they are obliged to do in order to follow the migrations of the seal and walrus, upon which they mainly subsist. Without him they could never find out the holes in the ice through which the seal comes up to breathe in the winter. Their dogs seem to be much more intelligent and docile than those of any other of the Polar tribes. When one is found to be more than usually intelligent he is carefully trained as a seal-dog. When the dog scents a sealhole, which he does though it is covered deep under the snow, he unerringly follows the scent to the very spot.

The Innuit proceeds to "prospect " by driving the slender spear through the snow until he finds the small opening in the ice which leads to the main hole. He then withdraws the spear, taking the utmost care not to disturb the snow, and seats himself close by to await the coming of the seal. He watches for hours, and sometimes for days, before he hears the welcome "blow." At

the second or third puff, he knows that the nose of the seal is at the bottom of the breathing-hole, perhaps two yards below the spot where he is standing. The spear must be thrust with perfect accuracy; for an error of a quarter of an inch on either side would miss the hole, and the spear-point would strike the