No one loves the raven. The hunter uses every art to catch him, but generally in vain. He will set out early of a winter’s morning with a supply of the most cunning traps he can contrive, and of the most tempting bait. Nothing is in sight as he leaves the camp. When he reaches the trapping grounds he sets a line of fox traps in all the most likely places, and carefully conceals his work with snow. But his every movement his been ’cutely watched, and as soon as his back is turned there comes an amused and contemptuous croak, as who should say: “What an ass! Do you suppose I’m not equal to that?” The croaker spreads bold wings and sails over to the trap. Inserting his bill beneath it like a lever, he simply wrests it over and so springs it. In a trice he tweaks out the bait and bolts it. He makes a point of being there on the hunter’s return in the evening, just to hear his remarks. The bird has the audacity indeed to sit there, close by, his head upon one side and a bored expression in his eye, as though he were reflecting on the pitiable amateurishness of the whole affair. “What!” he seems to say. “You call that a snare? And you think you’re eloquent about it now! Why, if it comes to that, I could make your hair stand on end with the force and aptness of my remarks!” With a hoarse, derisive note, he rises then and wheels off into the arctic empyrean. The gulls, on the other hand, come well within the category of those creatures whom the Eskimo hunter can outwit. These birds are always much in demand, both as food and for the sake of their skins, which latter, turned inside out, make capital socks. The old men spend a good deal of their time in winter, catching gulls. The hunter builds himself a small igloo among the rough ice by the seashore, and creeps inside. He proceeds to cut a hole in the top just big enough for the passage of a bird’s body, and round this opening, on the outside, he spreads attractive bits of seal meat and blubber. Then he prepares to wait. Presently a gull, sweeping by on the endless search for food, spies these dainties, and descrying no sign of foe or danger, swoops ever nearer and nearer, until at last it alights on top of the igloo for a brief second, seizes a morsel and wheels off again. Nothing untoward having occurred, the bird grows bolder, returns, and finally settles down to the feast outspread in that tempting spot. Suddenly a hand comes up and grips it by the legs, and drags it downwards through the hole. Another hand slides up its body to its neck, so that it cannot fight or bite, and in a moment or two the life is choked out of it. Bird after bird is caught in this way, until at the end of the day the hunter returns to the village under a load of white and grey feathers. He laughs delightedly to think how he has tricked the greedy gulls, and how his cunning bird-calls have deceived one after another.