Title: The American Museum journal
Identifier: americanmuseumjo13amer (find matches)
Year: c1900-(1918) (c190s)
Authors: American Museum of Natural History
Subjects: Natural history
Publisher: New York : American Museum of Natural History
Contributing Library: American Museum of Natural History Library
Digitizing Sponsor: Biodiversity Heritage Library

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Polar bears swimming, near Cape Parry captured twelve whales apiece, but the claims of some whalers that the numbers of whales have not been greatly reduced by the last quarter cen- tury of chase, seems extravagant. The limits of this paper prevent extended discussion of the haunts and habits of the smaller Arctic birds. From September to May practically the only game bird is the ptarmigan. From northwestern Alaska to Franklin Bay, I found both the willow and rock ptarmigan present in almost every locality, while in the Coronation Gulf region only the rock ptarmigan was found. Immense numbers appear on the coast in early spring although some are found the year round. As these birds are spread so universally over a vast territory and people are so few, a comparatively small number are killed. A few are snared and netted but unless other food fails, ptarmigan are usually considered too small to waste ammunition on. The trapping of mammals by the natives is beneficial to the birds, destroying a large num- ber of predatory foxes and the like, which in summer feed extensively on birds, their nests and eggs. In the region around Kittigaryuit near Sir J. Richardson's Point En- counter on the eastern side of the Mackenzie delta, there is more bird shoot- ing than among any other Eskimo I met. In 1910 the whole population for about a month depended almost entirely on the white-fronted, Hutchins's, black brant and snow geese, as well as on numbers of whistling swans. Ducks were considered too small and were not often molested. An inter- esting experience here one June was a long sled trip over the ice of the Mackenzie estuary to a locally famous brant rookery. Only a few miles south of this typically Arctic zone, up inside the tree line south of Richard Island, the birds are of the Canadian zone — robins, yellow warblers and thrushes being common. 19

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