human
Canis a corio nunquam absterrebitur uncto.
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to him--that is, he imitates the plaintive grunts in which seals converse with one another. Reassured by such persuasive language, the seal goes to sleep. Presently he starts up again, when the same process is repeated. Finally, when within range, the man fires, or the bear springs upon his victim. But the Esquimaux confess that the bear far surpasses them in this art, and that if they could only
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as well as
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Ninoo, (that is,
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Bruin,) they should never be in want of seal's flesh. When the winter sets in, and the ice becomes thick, the seal cuts a passage {561} through the ice with his sharp claws with which its flippers are armed, and makes an aperture in the surface large enough to admit its nose to the outer air for the purpose of respiration. This aperture is soon covered with snow. When the snow becomes deep enough, and the seal is about to give birth to its young, it widens the aperture, passes through the ice, and constructs a dome-shaped chamber under the snow, which becomes the nursery of the young seals. This is called a seal's _igloo_, from its resemblance to the huts built by the Esquimaux. It requires a dog with a very fine nose to mark the bathing-place or igloo of a seal by the taint of the animal beneath the snow; but when once it has been discovered, the Esquimaux is pretty sure of his prey. If an igloo has been formed, and the seal has young ones, the hunter leaps
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upon the top of the dome, crushes it in, and, before the seals can recover from their astonishment, he plunges his seal-hooks into them, from which there is no escape. If there be no igloo, but a mere breathing-hole, he clears away the snow with his spear and marks the exact spot where the seal's nose will protrude at his next visit, an aperture only a few inches in diameter; then with a seal-spear strongly barbed in his hand, and attached to his belt by twenty yards of the thongs of deer's hide, he seats himself over the hole and awaits the seal's
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The seal may blow in a few minutes, or in a few hours, or not for two or three days; but there the Esquimaux remains, without food, and whatever the weather may be, till he hears a low snorting sound; then, quick as lightning, and with unerring aim, he plunges the spear into the seal, opens the aperture in the ice with his axe till it will allow the body of the seal to pass, and draws it forth upon the ice. The mode of spearing the walrus is more perilous. The walrus are generally found among broken ice, or ice so thin that they can break it. If the ice is thin, they will often attack the hunter by breaking the ice under his feet. In order to do this, the walrus looks steadily at the man taking aim at him, and then dives; the Esquimaux, aware of his intention, runs to a short distance to shift his position, and when the walrus rises, crashing through the ice on which he was standing only a moment before, he comes forward again and darts his harpoon into it. Ordinarily the Esquimaux selects a hole in the ice where he expects the walrus to