aration and
skill are required in this sport. The hunter constructs for himself a derrick about forty feet high, this mechanism consisting
simply of three slim poles securely bolted together at top and
spread out like a tripod at bottom. This is placed on the beach
at a point midway between high and low tide, firmly planted in
the sand, and braced, with the means of ascent and descent provided by cross-pieces on the inland side. Near the top a platform is provided, with walls, on the ocean sides to hide the
hunter from view, and screen him from the wind which often
is sharp and biting. At low tide the hunter betakes himself to’
his eyry, and seating himself on the top of the tripod begins his
watch, which lasts six hours. He is armed with a good pair of
glasses and a Sharpe’s rifle. When the tide begins to flood his
range is six hundred yards, but as it runs in on the beach it is
shortened to half that or less. At either distance it requires
close calculation to get a good aim, or to overcome the effect of
the ocean swell and movement. The best marksman may miss
ninety-nine times out of a hundred; and no wonder, for when
the tide is full his derrick is in the midst of the dizzying breakers.
The shooting is done during flood-tide, that the spoil may be
washed ashore, but it is often several days before it ia-beached,
and then an Indian may have gotten it. Each hunter has a
particular mark by which his bullets are known, and if an
otter comes ashore without a bullet in him, it is the property
of the finder; but an Indian would not trouble himself about
“brands.”
The natives hunt the otter in canoes, sometimes going far out to sea and remaining for days. In fact, they drive them away from shore, and injure the sport of the white hunters. The season for killing is from May to October, and a hunter does not take more than four in a season. The skins are valued at from ninety dollars to one hundred and fifty dollars to the hunter, but a Russian or a Chinaman will pay for an otter-skin overcoat from one thousand to two thousand dollars. The otter will soon be hunted out, and disappear, even as.forest animals are doing.
Whales are frequently harpooned by the Neah Bay Indians near the entrance to the Strait of Juan de Fuca. It is a hazardous sport, requiring great “ medicine” to succeed in ; but when
