"The Canada goose, breeding about the lakes and ponds, is a grass-eater, and so tastes better than the fishy, oily gulls and divers. You can tame the goose and use it as a decoy. When a number are shot at a time, those that can't be used right away are hung outside the house. There they freeze, and are kept fresh all winter long. "There couldn't be a better retriever for a duck-hunt than the Eskimo dog. I've watched them dash into the waves after a bird, only to be thrown back, bruised and winded, high up on the ledges of the rock. "Then the return wave would drag them off, and pound them against the rocks. But the dogs would hang on for dear life, till their nails were torn away and their paws were bleeding. "Even that wouldn't make them quit. They would return to the charge, and waiting for their chance they would jump right over the breaking crest and get clear of the surf. "When they've once got hold of a duck, nothing will make them let go. I've often been tempted to jump in and give the brave fellows a hand, when it seemed as if they couldn't keep up the struggle any longer. "They'd sink out of sight in a bigger wave than usual--and then, sure enough, you'd see the duck again, and the dog's head after it, still true to duty even in the jaws of death. For sometimes, in spite of all his pluck and cleverness, the dog is drowned." XIV BEASTS BIG AND LITTLE Both on sea and land, Labrador animals have to be as tough as Labrador people to stand the hard life they must lead. Dr. Grenfell tells of a seal family he saw killed on an ice-pan about half the size of a tennis-court. They were surprised by four sealers, with wooden bats. Before they gave up their lives they put up a tremendous struggle. The father seal actually caught a club in his mouth and swung it from side to side with such violence that the sealers had to get off the pan. But at last he was dealt such a blow on the head that it was supposed he was killed. Instead of stripping off the pelt as the fallen monster lay on the pan, the sealers hoisted him aboard the steamer "unscalped." As he was being lifted over the rail--two thousand pounds of him--the strap broke, and back into the sea the huge carcass splashed. The cold water revived him. He swam back to the pan, which was marked by the blood stains of his slaughtered family--the mate with her young which he had fought so desperately to protect. The pan stood about six feet out of the water. Yet the great animal managed to fling himself upon it. The men, who had bread and tea to win for their families, could not afford to let him go. They went back after him, and this time they did not trust to their wooden bats. They used a few of their precious cartridges and shot him. And then they "scalped" him on the spot, and hauled the skin over the rail. It is painful to think of such a fate for the brave old warrior.