288 TYPES OF ANIMAL LIFE 



are very inquisitive animals, and most kinds are strongly 

 attracted by musical sounds. Seals live mainly on fishes, 

 but also on molluscs and creatures of the crab and 

 lobster kind. They can remain a long time beneath the 

 surface of the water, certainly for a quarter of an hour. 



The young seals, strange to say, enter the water 

 unwillingly, and have to be taught to swim by their 

 parents. Some species will remain out of the water for 

 three weeks after birth. Seals are remarkable for the 

 affection they show to their young, and they are also 

 very intelligent animals and readily learn to perform a 

 number of surprising tricks. 



Like the sea-lions, seals fall victims to sharks and to 

 the grampus, but many are also destroyed by polar 

 bears. 



Several species migrate with regularity, and Mr. J. C. 

 Stevenson has related how, during the summer and 

 autumn, numbers of these creatures are met with in 

 regions whence the approach of severe weather forces 

 them to retreat southwards. This movement is anxi- 

 ously watched for by the human inhabitants of the 

 coasts along which they travel, and watchmen are set to 

 communicate the news of the approach of the seals. They 

 come at first in small detachments of from half a dozen to 

 a score, and such will gradually increase in frequency for 

 two or three days, when they come in hundreds. The 

 main body then follows and averages two days in passing 

 any spot. In all quarters, as far as the eye can carry, 

 nothing is visible but seals, and the sea seems full of 

 their heads. lu about a week the whole host, consisting 

 of many hundreds of thousands, will follow the polar 

 current which sets through Hudson's Bay, and sweeps 

 the coast of Labrador in a south-east direction. Then 

 some go towards the Gulf of St. Lawrence, but most 



