AUK-CATCHING.
While I was watching these movements with much
interest, my companion was intent only upon business,
and warned me to lie lower, as the birds saw me and
were flying too high overhead. Having at length
got myself stowed away to the satisfaction of my
savage companion, the sport began. The birds were
beginning again to whirl their flight closer to our
heads,—so close, indeed, did they come that it
seemed almost as if I could catch them with my cap.
Presently, I observed my companion preparing himself
as a flock of unusual thickness was approaching;
and, in a moment, up went the net; a half dozen
birds flew bang into it, and, stunned with the blow,
they could not flutter out before Kalutunah had
slipped the staff quickly through his hands and
seized the net; with his left hand he now pressed
down the birds, while with the right he drew them
out, one by one; and, for want of a third hand, he
used his teeth to crush their heads. The wing's were
then locked across each other, to keep them from fluttering
away; and, with an air of triumph, the old fellow
looked around at me, spat the blood and feathers
from his mouth, and went on with the sport, tossing
up his net and hauling it in with much rapidity, until
he had caught about a hundred birds; when, my curiosity
being amply satisfied, we returned to camp and
made a hearty meal out of the game which we had
bagged in this novel and unsportsman-like manner.
While an immense stew was preparing, Kalutunah
amused himself with tearing off the birds' skins, and
consuming the raw flesh while it was yet warm.
Our stay at the glacier was brought suddenly to an end by a violent storm of wind and snow, and both ourselves and our Esquimau companions were forced
