With respect to the inferior, or slave-beaver, of which some Authors speak, it is, in my opinion, very difficult for those who are best acquainted with the oeconomy of this animal to determine whether there are any that deserve that appellation or not. It sometimes happens, that a beaver is caught, which has but a very indifferent coat, and which has broad patches on the back, and shoulders almost wholly without hair. This is the only foundation for asserting that there is an inferior, or slave-beaver, among them. And when one of the above description is taken, it is perhaps too hastily inferred that the hair is worn off from those parts by carrying heavy loads: whereas it is most probable that it is caused by a disorder that attacks them somewhat similar to the mange; for { 246} were that falling off of the hair occasioned by performing extra labour, it is natural to think that instances of it would be more frequent than there are; as it is rare to see one of them in the course of seven or ten years. I have seen a whole house of those animals that had nothing on the surface of their bodies but the fine soft down; all the long hairs having molted off. This and every other deviation from the general run is undoubtedly owing to some particular disorder.
[86] Sir John Richardson says of Thaye-chuck-gyed Lake that it lies a short way to the northward of Point Lake.
[87] These are larvæ of a fly (_Hypoderma liniata?_), the eggs of which are laid in the skins of the deer in the early part of the summer. Here they develop to the size of buckshot or larger, and those portions of the skin covering them become very thin, so that when the hide is taken off and tanned it is so full of holes, a quarter of an inch or more in diameter, as to be almost entirely useless.
[88] Sir John Franklin crossed Point Lake in 1821, and the "small scrubby woods" on its banks were noted by him, when he descended and surveyed the Coppermine River from it to the sea. Hearne places the south side of this lake on his map in North latitude 65° 45', only about thirty-five miles north of its true position. Caspar Whitney crossed Point Lake in the spring of 1895, and calls it Ecka tua (Fat-Water Lake). ("On Snowshoes to the Barren Grounds." By Caspar Whitney, p. 209.) Russell, in speaking of the Coppermine River which he crossed in April 1894, says, "It takes its rise in a large lake, called Ek-a Tooh, which is two days' journey in length." ("Explorations in the Far North." By Frank Russell, p. 112.)