_Substances used for food._--The food of these people consists almost entirely of animal substances. The staple article of food is the flesh of the rough seal, of which they obtain more than of any other meat. Next in importance is the venison of the reindeer, though this is looked upon as a kind of dainty.[N98] Many well developed fœtal reindeer are brought home from the spring deer hunt and are said to be excellent eating, though we never saw them eaten. They also eat the flesh of the other three species of seal, the walrus, the polar bear, the “bowhead” whale, the white whale, and all the larger kinds of birds, geese, ducks, gulls, and grouse. All the different kinds of fish appear to be eaten, with the possible exception of the two species of Lycodes (only a few of these were caught, and all were purchased for our collection) and very little of a fish is wasted except the hardest parts. Walrus hide is sometimes cooked and eaten in times of scarcity. Mollusks of any kind are rarely eaten, as it is difficult to procure them. After a heavy gale in the autumn of 1881, when the beach was covered with marine animals, mostly lamellibranch mollusks with their shells and softer parts broken off by the violence of the surf, we saw one woman collect a lapful of these “clam-heads,” which she said she was going to eat. The “blackskin” (epidermis) of the whale is considered a great delicacy by them, as by all the other Eskimo who are able to procure it, and they are also very fond of the tough white skin or gum round the roots of the whalebone.[N99] [Footnote N98: The Eskimo of Iglulik “prefer venison to any kind of meat.” Parry, 2d Voyage, p. 510.] [Footnote N99: Compare Hooper, Tents, etc. “This, which the Tuski call their sugar,” p. 174; and Hall, Arctic Researches, p. 132 (Baffin Land).] We saw and heard nothing of the habit so generally noticed among other Eskimo and in Siberia of eating the half-digested contents of the stomach of the reindeer, but we found that they were fond of the fæces taken from the rectum of the deer. I find that this curious habit has been noticed among Eskimo only in two other places--Greenland in former times and Boothia Felix. The Greenlanders ate “the Dung of the Rein-deer, taken out of the Guts when they clean them; the Entrails of Partridges and the like Out-cast, pass for Dainties with them.”[N100] The dung of the musk ox and reindeer when fresh were considered a delicacy by the Boothians, according to J. C. Ross.[N101] The entrails of fowls are also considered a great delicacy and are carefully cooked as a separate dish.[N102] [Footnote N100: Egede, Greenland, p. 136.] [Footnote N101: Appendix to Ross’s 2d Voyage, p. xix.] [Footnote N102: Compare the passage from Egede, just quoted, and also Kumlien, Contributions, etc., p. 20, at Cumberland Gulf.]