The natives thus name the four seasons: Opingrak, spring; Auyak, summer; Okeoksak, autumn (i.e., material for winter), and Okeok, winter. The months are named by the sequence of events—the coming of the ducks, the birth of the reindeer fawns, the coming of the fish (sea trout), etc., as “the duck month,” “the fawn month,” “the fish month,” etc. And the days are distinguished as “oblo,” to-day; “koukpât,” to-morrow; “ikpuksâk,” yesterday; “ikpuksâne,” the day before yesterday, and so forth. “Akkâgo” means next year, and “akkâne” is last year. CHAPTER III ARCTIC FLORA AND FAUNA Another striking feature of the Arctics is the effect upon the appearance and character of those shores touched by the Gulf Stream, as compared with those where its waters never pass. Thus the coast of Greenland is comparatively luxuriant in vegetation and its seas teem with fish, while Baffin Land, opposite, washed by arctic currents, is desolate and barren, with no fishing off its shores. The same contrast holds good with respect to the north and south coasts of Hudson Strait. There are no cod off Baffin Land, but the Labrador fishermen ply their trade right into Hudson Bay. Baffin “Island” is a trackless, mysterious continent where, high up on the summits of some of the mountains, there are vast lakes fed from hidden springs—or from streams from still higher ranges—wherein salmon trout abound! At least, these fish are exactly like the sea trout which come up the rivers every year to spawn, save that the hue of the belly is bright red. The Eskimo point to this as proof that they never go down to the sea, and call them the “dirty fish,” since they never quit the lakes. How they ever got into them is a mystery the arctic zoölogist must be left to solve, since neither hunter nor fisherman can offer a suggestion. The trout could not have attained any such level upstream. It would almost appear—if one might hazard a guess—that at some remote geologic epoch this part of the N. American continent was submerged, for the Eskimo of Baffin Land speak of an inland sea, now dry, where fossil remains are to be found of large creatures such as the whale and walrus. They come across fossil fish, indeed, in their more extended wanderings, also shells, and bring them back to camp as curiosities. The Eskimo are properly a seaboard people and seldom penetrate farther inland than thirty miles from the coast, unless during the annual deer hunt, when they may be away for a couple of months, according to the distance the quest may take them.