(54 NATURAL HISTORY OF AQUATIC ANIMALS. 



Jan Mayen Island, where the present species forms almost the sole object of pursuit. The sealing 

 season lasts for only a few weeks during spring; the enterprise 1 gives employment during this 

 time to hundreds of vessels and thousands of men, the average annual catch falling little short of 



* 



a million Seals, valued at about three million dollars. While the pursuit is mainly carried on in 

 vessels, sailing chiefly from English, German, and Norwegian ports, or from those of Newfoundland 

 and the other British Provinces, many are caught along the shores of the countries periodically 

 visited by these animals, as those of South Greenland, Southern Labrador, Newfoundland, and 

 the Gulf of Saint Lawrence. The pursuit with vessels, and the various incidents connected 

 therewith, have already been detailed, and sufficient allusions have perhaps also already been made 

 to the Greenland method of seal-hunting. 



In consequence of the gregarious habits of the species, and the fact that one-half to two-thirds 

 of those taken are young ones that are not old enough to make any effectual attempt to escape, 

 the success of a sealing voyage depends almost wholly upon the mere matter of luck in discovering 

 the herds. While the old Seals are mostly shot, the young are killed with clubs. In respect to 

 the ease and facility with which they are captured it may be noted that it is not at all unusual, in 

 the height of the season, for the crew of a single small vessel to kill and take on board from five 

 hundred to a thousand in a day. Mr. Brown states : " In 1866 the steamer Camperdown obtained 

 the enormous number of 22,000 Seals in nine days," or an average of 2,500 per day. " It is nothing 

 uncommon," he adds, " for a ship's crew to club or shoot, in one day, as many as from 500 to 800 old 

 Seals, with 2,000 young ones." 2 Such slaughter is necessarily attended with more or less barbarity, 

 but this seems to be sometimes carried to a needless extreme. The Seals are very tenacious of 

 life, and, in the haste" of killing, many are left for a long time half dead, or lire even flayed alive. 

 Jukes states that even the young are " sometimes barbarously skinned alive, the body writhing in 

 blood after being stripped of its skin," and they have even been seen to swim away in that state, 

 as when the first blow fails to kill the Seals their hard-hearted murderers " cannot stop to give 

 them a second." " How is it," he adds, " one can steel one's mind to look on that which to 

 read of, or even think of afterwards, makes one shudder ? In the bustle, hurry, and excitement, 

 these things pass as a matter of course, and as if necessary; but they are most horrible, and 

 will not admit of an attempt at palliation." Scoresby and other writers refer to similar heartless 

 proceedings as though the necessary suffering attending such a sacrifice of unresisting creatures 

 were not in itself bad enough without the infliction of such needless cruelty. The young Seals 

 not only do not attempt any resistance, but are said to make no effort to move when approached, 

 quietly sufl'ering themselves to be knocked on the head with a club. The old Seals are more 

 wary, and are generally killed with fire-arms. Scoresby relates that "When the Seals are 

 observed to be making their escape into the water before the boats reach the ice, the sailors give 

 a long-continued shout, on which their victims are deluded by the amazement a sound so unusual 

 produces and frequently delay their retreat until arrested by the blows of their enemies." 



The annual catch of Harp Seals in Greenland is stated by Eiuk to be 17,500 full-grown " Sad- 

 dle-backs " and 15,500 " Bluesides," or 33,000 in all. The catch from the Newfoundland ports alone 

 i ill en reaches 500,000, and in the Jan Mayen seas often exceeds 300,000, so that the total annual 

 catch of this species alone doubtless ranges from 800,000 to 900,000. 



The commercial products are the oil used in the lubrication of machinery, in tanning leather, 

 and in miners' lamps and the skins, which are employed for the manufacture of various kinds of 



'For statistics of the seal fishery, see Allen's "North American Pinnipeds," pp. 4'J7-5O2. 

 2 Man. Nat. Hist., Geol., &c., Greenland, Mammals, p. 67, foot-note. 



