PHOCA FCETIDA RINGED SEAL. 597 



either ball or heavy shot, in order to kill it on the spot. Says Mr. 

 Keeks, " I have been often amused at published accounts of Seals 

 shot in the Thames or elsewhere, but which 'sank immediately'. 

 What Seal or other amphibious animal would not do so if 

 'tickled' with the greater part of, perhaps, an ounce of No. 5 

 shot?" He adds that it is only in the spring of the year that 

 this Seal will "float" when killed in the water, but says that he 

 has never seen a Seal "so poor, which, if killed dead on the spot, 

 would not have floated from five to ten seconds," or long enough 

 to give "ample time for rowing alongside," supposing the ani- 

 mal to have been killed by shot, and the boat to contain "two 

 hands".* The oil of this species, according to the same writer, 

 sells in Newfoundland for fifty to seventy-five cents a gallon, 

 while the skins are worth one dollar each. Mr. Carroll gives the 

 weight of the skin and blubber of a full-grown individual as rang- 

 ing from eighty to one hundred pounds, while that of a young 

 one averages, at ten weeks old, thirty to thirty-five pounds. 

 The flesh of the young, the same writer quaintly says, is " as 

 pleasant to the taste as that of any description of salt-water 

 bird."t Its flesh, as already stated, is esteemed by the Green- 

 landers above that of any other species. Few statistics relat- 

 ing to the capture of this species are available, but the number 

 taken is small in comparison with the "catch" of other species, 

 particularly of the Harp or Greenland Seal. Dr. Kink states 

 that only from one thousand to two thousand are annually taken 

 in Greenland, which is about one to two per cent, of the total 

 catch. They are hunted to a considerable extent, however, 

 wherever they occur in numbers. 



The Harbor Seal received this name from its predilection for 

 bays, inlets, estuaries, and fjords, from which habit it is also 

 often termed Bay Seal, and, on the Scandinavian coast, Fjord 

 Seal (Fjordskiil),! and also Rock Seal (Steen-Kobbe). 



PHOCA (PUSA) FCETIDA, Fabricius. 

 Ringed Seal. 



Phoca, ALBINUS, Acad. Aunot., iii, 1756, cap. xv. 



Neitsek, CRANZ, Hist, von Grcenl., i, 1765, 164; ibid., English version, 1767, 

 124. 



"Zoologist, 2d ser., vol. vi, 1871, p. 2541. 

 t Seal and Herring Fisheries of Newfoundland, p. 11. 

 } In Greenland, however, according to Dr. Kink, it is the Phocafcctida that 

 receives this name. 



