its centre is marked by erecting a little pinnacle of snow directly above it.
This done, a long and tedious wait follows, during which time the patient hunter often suffers much from the cold, for he is obliged to remain quite still, not uncommonly from early morning until evening. In order to keep the feet from freezing, while thus remaining for hours upon the snow, a deer-skin bag is commonly used to stand in.
During the interval of the seal's absence from home the doorway becomes frozen over, and it is on account of this fact that the hunter is made aware of its return, for when the seal comes back to its hole and finds it crusted over, it at once commences to blow upon the ice to melt it. This is the hunter's long-desired signal, and the moment he hears it he places the point of his harpoon at the mark on the snow, and thrusts the weapon vertically down into the hole, almost invariably with deadly effect. The seal, thus harpooned in the head, is instantly killed, and is then hauled out by the line attached to the spear.
Some seasons, when the ice is covered by a great depth of snow, the dogs are not able to scent the seals' houses, and then the Eskimo has to depend upon other sources for food, or else go on short rations.
In the spring, as the snow disappears, the seals' winter quarters are demolished, and they themselves are exposed to view. Then the Eskimo is obliged to resort to other methods of getting at them. When one is observed, the direction of the wind is first noted, then the hunter, keeping himself to leeward of the seal, walks to within about a quarter of a mile of it; but beyond
