After these come the extempore efforts of the current evening. Each man contributes a song of his own, turning upon some event in his career, or some more or less poetic fancy which has occurred to him. The songs have probably been composed and polished, and possibly practised, in private for some time, but the contest is the occasion of their publication to the musical world. They are most attentively received, and judged by the Angakooeet. The outstanding event of the evening, to which all look forward on the tip-toe of expectation, is the tournament of satires between the ptarmigans and the ducks. A ball of thoroughly good-tempered musical ridicule is tossed backwards and forwards between each pair of singers, accompanied by roars of laughter from the auditors, who hold their sides and roll in ecstasies of enjoyment. Tears of merriment stream down the women’s faces. This sort of thing goes on night after night for as long as a whole week; and only at the end of that time does the gathering begin to break up, and set about the prodigious business of getting on with the summer’s work. As soon as this interlude of festivity and recreation is concluded, the tribes separate, each bound for its own appointed sphere of hunting operations, independently of the others. The new camp is soon pitched in some sheltered valley where there is a running stream, but not too close to the selected district, for fear of alarming the shy quarry. The men then go daily to search the hills and stalk the deer. As soon as a herd is located, word is passed down to the camp, and the women rally to the men’s assistance. As each arrives she receives her instructions from the hunters. A valley is selected having but one exit, where there seem to be plenty of boulders. The women station themselves in a rough sort of ring all round it, hidden behind the rocks, each one with her skin jacket off and slung over her arm. Meanwhile, the men creep up, and, keeping also under cover, surround the herd, and begin, by the well aimed throwing of first one stone, then another, to drive it off in the direction of the selected ravine, where other hunters are gathered in force with bows and arrows ready. The deer, still suspecting nothing, move slowly to their fate. Presently one woman, to the rear, and then another, gets up in the open and beats her jacket on the rock behind which she had been hiding. This scares the creatures forward in the right direction, and drives them within the reach of the men. Directly they come within bowshot their doom is sealed. So skilful are the hunters that no man expends more than an arrow apiece on the deer. The whole herd is killed with the greatest celerity.