442 Transactions. — Miscellaneous. 



or could it be that wandering seals found an island in the 

 trackless sea and studied its suitability (owing to the absence 

 of man, regardless of climate and all other conditions) for a 

 home for themselves, and then marked down its position on 

 their wonderful chart, in brain or memory, so that they could 

 find it ever afterwards at any appointed time, though they 

 may possibly have wandered through hundreds of islands and 

 thousands of miles of sea ? How the seals managed to do 

 this I cannot even begin to think. The whole subject is out- 

 side of my mental horizon. I am not only deficient in the 

 faculty, but in the machinery, for understanding what it is. 

 As for ''instinct," it is only a catchpenny way of solving the 

 puzzle, because we see that with it they have used the very 

 best of reasoning, perhaps better than we are capable of un- 

 derstanding. Instead of " instinct " for the animals, it is 

 just as likely that man is wholly deficient in some of the most 

 wonderful and useful qualities of mind. 



It is well known now that the seals go away from the 

 Pribyloffs for two- thirds of the year, and make journeys of 

 many thousands of miles, and return at the proper time al- 

 most to a day. This implies that they must always have a 

 so-called " instinctive " knowledge of their position at sea. 



According to Dr. Conan Doyle the hair-seals in the Arctic 

 Ocean perform a more difficult feat than this, which also gives 

 a hint of how the native navigators may have used other 

 seals. He writes, " For breeding purposes the seals all come 

 together at a variable spot which is evidently prearranged 

 among them, and as this place may be anywhere within many 

 hundreds of square miles of floating ice it is no easy matter 

 for the sealer to find it. The means by which he sets about 

 it are simple but ingenious. As the ship makes its way 

 through the loose ice-streams a school of seals is observed 

 travelling through the w 7 ater. Their direction is carefully 

 taken by compass and marked on the chart. An hour after- 

 wards perhaps another school is seen. This is also taken 

 and marked. When those bearings have been taken several 

 times the various lines upon the chart are prolonged until 

 they intersect. At this point, or near it, it is likely that the 

 main pack of seals will be found." Thus the old native 

 navigators could have taken the direction of a school of seals, 

 and have followed it by sun or stars till they saw another 

 school to correct their course again ; and in this way, at the 

 beginning of the breeding-season, they would be sure to 

 find the rookeries and plenty of food and clothing-material 

 waiting for them on the beaches. 



Seals' bones are very perishable, for they are nearly as 

 scarce in Dusky Sound as Maori tools. I put a seal's carcase 

 up on the land so that I might get the skeleton, but when I 



