145. INNUIT STRATEGY TO CAPTURE A SEAL.
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 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.”
146. SEAL-HOLE AND IGLOO.
147. WAITING FOR A BLOW.
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.
148. DOG AND SEAL.