BULLETIN OF THE UNITED STAT JL< S FISH COMMISSION. 19 



long, 10 inches wide, and 8 inches deep, measured on the inside ; and 

 there should be 12 rods, or 24 dozen, of fish in a box of prime herring. 

 If the fish are large and of the best quality, it requires some pressure 

 to get this number into a box. The Digby herring are in some instances 

 eared in pickle, unsmoked, and packed in half barrels. Packed in bar- 

 rels, each barrel is supposed to weigh 224 pounds. 



Seals and seal hunting. — There are seven species of seals cred- 

 ited to the coast of Labrador. Of the first, the walrus, or morse, or 

 la vache marine of the French (Odobamus rosmarus Malmgren, also 

 called the Atlantic walrus, in distinction from the Odobesus, or Pacific 

 walrus), I will not attempt to give a history, it being of too irregular 

 occurrence upon the coast to admit it. It is found sometimes in 

 Northern Labrador. Two specimens were captured at Fox Harbor 

 about 1880, and one of the young men in our expedition in 1882 se- 

 cured the tusks of a small specimen from this locality. The inhabi- 

 tants here say that they see these animals occasionally in the water, 

 but rarely capture them ; that they occur more frequently farther 

 north on the coast, though probably never common. None of the 

 eared seals are known to occur on the Atlantic coast, I believe. The 

 remaining animals are of the family Phocidce, and of these six are gen- 

 erally believed to be found in Labrador. 



First may be mentioned the Harbor seal (Phoca vitulina Linne). This 

 is one of the smallest of the seal species. Its coat is of a beautiful, 

 soft, and silky texture on its surface, the hairs being darker beneath, 

 and often variously spotted and marked with dark and white spots and 

 blotches. When young they are of a dirty, yellowish white. The 

 specimens of harbor seal usually seen in our country are only young, 

 and rarely exceed 5 feet in length ; the adults are occasionally 7 feet 

 or more, as I have several times seen them. Few species have so wide 

 a geographical distribution as this same harbor seal, and its variation 

 in coloration, also, has combined with this distribution to give more syn- 

 onyms to this than perhaps any other species of the seal tribe. It 

 occurs in nearly every region of our northern hemisphere, and even 

 ascends the large rivers, and is seen in the interior of the country in 

 large lakes and ponds where they occur. It is not a migratory species, 

 at least not extensively so. It lives in the region where it occurs 

 throughout the year. It is confined to near the shore. It rears its 

 young, at least in Labrador, 10 to 20 miles up some river in the interior 

 of the country where there is a sand-bar in the river, and in the early 

 spring as soon as the river is free of ice. It is a very knowing animal, 

 and also a very sagacious one. Seals are captured in nets placed at 

 the mouths of the rivers or near some rocky point of land where the 

 seals are abundant. These harbor-seal nets are made of stout " salmon 

 twine," are 40 to 50 fathoms long, and G to 8 deep. The meshes are 6 

 inches. The nets are moored with heavy weights, and tended about 

 twice a week, as frequent visiting of the region where they are set tends 



