Page:Life with the Esquimaux - 1864 - Volume 2.djvu/349

330 throws down upon the animal's head a large rock, calculating the distance and the curve with astonishing accuracy, and thus crushing the thick, bullet-proof skull. If the walrus is not instantly killed—simply stunned—the bear rushes down to it, seizes the rock, and hammers away at the head till the skull is broken. A fat feast follows. Unless the bear is very hungry, it eats only the blubber of the walrus, seal, and whale. The bear can catch a seal in the water. He sees it, drops his body beneath the surface, allowing only his head to be visible, that having the appearance of a piece of ice. While the seal has its head above water, and is looking around, the bear sinks, swims under it, and clutches it from beneath. When the sea-ice begins to make, we will say about the middle of October to the 1st of November, the female bear captures and kills several seals, which she hides away among the hummocks. Then she retires to the land and eats moss, the object being to produce an internal mechanical obstruction called "tappen." After this she goes to her deposits of meat, and feasts upon seal-blubber to her utmost limit of expansion. She is now ready for retiring to her winter's home, which is generally an excavation she has "chiselled out" of a glacier. Some time after entering she brings forth her young, which sometimes number one, more frequently two, and sometimes three. In this crystal nursery she continues exercising her progeny daily by walking them to and fro till about the 1st of April, at which time seals begin to bring forth their young. The bear family then walks forth, the matron snuffing the air. Perhaps it is charged with seal-scent. She then follows up the scent till it brings her to a seal igloo. When she is satisfied that all is right below, she prepares herself, gives a fearful leap—high and far—striking forcibly with her paws upon the roof, crushing it in, and seizing the young occupant of the house, soon making of it a dainty feast for the young polars. It is a custom among the Innuits, dating from time immemorial, that whoever first sees a Ninoo is entitled to the skin,