CHAP. XVII.]     "COIBALLING" DEER.                  187
animals, which they will neither throw on the fire nor to the dogs, but save them in their houses or caches. When they
Co-Yukon Four-post Coffin.
saw us careless in such matters, they said it would prevent them from catching or shooting successfully. Also, they will not throw away their hair or nails, just cut short, but save them, sometimes hanging them in packages to the trees.
The mode of fishing through the ice practised by the Russians is much in vogue with them, and they also have an ingenious mode of catching reindeer in the mountain valleys. A kind of corral, or enclosure, elliptical in form, and open at one end, is made on a deer-trail, generally near the outlet of a wood. The further end of the enclosed space is barricaded; the sides are built of stakes, with slip-nooses or loops between them. Herds of deer are driven in from the woods, and, trying to break from the trap, generally run their heads into