522 FAMILY PHOCID^E. 



blown about by high winds, was monotonous beyond concep- 

 tion. . . . Month after month passed away, and there is no 

 cessation in the labors of the elephant hunters. Mist and snow 

 and slaughter, the packing of oil, hard bread and sad beef, 

 fatigue and heavy slumbers these are the burthen of their song 

 of life."* 



METHODS OF CAPTURE, ETC. 







The methods employed in capturing Seals vary according to 

 circumstances of locality and other contingencies. In the fore- 

 going pages some of the ways and devices used have been 

 given incidentally at some length in connection with the ac- 

 counts of certain important sealing districts, but the general 

 subject of Seal capturing claims further and more methodical 

 treatment. Although no very rigid classification of the methods 

 employed will be attempted, a convenient division may be made 

 under the two heads of "Shore Sealing" and "Ice-Hunting", 

 in accordance with whether the Seals are taken on or near the 

 land, or upon the ice-floes of the high seas. While the former 

 may be carried on partly in boats, the latter requires vessels 

 especially equipped for protracted voyages. 



I. SHORE- HUNTING. The capture of Seals on or near the 

 land is accomplished in various ways, as by the use of nets, the 

 rifle, the sealing-club, the lance, the harpoon, etc. While the 

 use of nets is necessarily restricted to the shore, the club, the 

 rifle, and the lance are the common implements of destruction 

 used also on the ice-floes. The met bods employed in shore- 

 hunting vary also with the species pursued and with the sea- 

 son of the year. The capture of Seals by use of the harpoon is 

 mainly practised by the Esquimaux and other northern tribes, 

 and may be termed 



1 . The Greenland method. In Greenland about one-sixth of 

 the catch is taken in nets, and the remainder with the harpoon 

 and gun. The Esquimaux method of capturing Seals with the 

 harpoon, has been often described by arctic voyagers, the fol- 

 lowing account of which, as still practised by the Greenlanders, 

 is here transcribed from Dr. Rink's late work on " Danish Green- 

 land". He says, "The art of catching seals by the harpoon 

 and bladder is still pursued in Greenland exactly in the same 

 way as before Europeans had settled there, without the least 



* Forest and Stream (newspaper), vol. xi, pp. 437, 438, Jan. 2, 1879. A very 

 good account of Sea-Ek-pkant kunting may also be found in Captain Scam- 

 mou's "Marine Mammals of tke North-western Coast of North America," 

 pp. 119-123. 



