HUNTING AND PRODUCTS. 653 



where the present species forms almost the sole object of pur- 

 suit. The sealing- season lasts for only a few weeks during 

 spring ; the enterprise * 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 of dollars. While the pursuit is mainly carried 

 on in vessels, sailing chiefly from English, German, and Nor- 

 wegian 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 tliose of 

 South Greenland, Southern Labrador, Newfoundland, and the 

 Gulf of Saint Lawrence. The pursuit with vessels, and the va- 

 rious incidents connected therewith, have already been detailed, 

 and sufficient allusions have perhaps also already been made 

 to the Greenland method of Seal-hunting (antea, pp. 522-545). 

 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 cap- 

 tured 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 18G6 the steamer Cainperdown obtained 

 the enormous number of 22,000 Seals in nine days," or an aver- 

 age 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".t 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 are even flayed 

 alive. Jukes states that even the young are " sometimes bar- 

 barously 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 Seal 

 their hard-hearted murderers " cannot stop to give them a sec- 

 ond". "How is it," he adds, "one can steel one's mind to look 



* For statistics. of the Seal-fishery, see anted, pp. 497-502. 

 tMan. Nat. Hist., Geol., etc., Greenland, Mam., p. 67, footnote. 



