SEA-LIONS AND FUR-SEALS. 



331 



scribed by some writers as a kind of marine bears. Their bright, 

 intelligent-looking faces are familiar in all our zoological collec- 

 tions, and their sports and antics are always amusing, and never 

 fail to collect a crowd wherever they can be observed. 



The true seals live in the northern seas. They are the main 

 reliance of the Eskimo for his support, and supply him with food, 

 light, fuel, clothes, thread, 

 strings, and leather. The 

 best-known species is the 

 common seal {Phoca vitu- 

 lina, Fig, 1), which is com- 

 mon in the European seas, 

 and is often seen in New 

 Brunswick and along the 

 New England coast. It is 

 brownish above and white 

 beneath, mottled, pied, or 

 marbled, and has a hand- 

 some hair, which is much 

 prized by the Indians. 



The Greenland seal 

 {Phoca groenlandica, Fig. 

 a), also called, from the 

 very conspicuous manner 

 in which the fur of the 

 adult is colored, the harp 

 seal, is the animal of which the Eskimos make the most use. The 

 male is grayish-white with black markings, the female brownish 

 with black, and the young snow-white. The animals live in herds 

 on the floating ice along the Greenland coast, and are sometimes 



carried to Labrador, New- 

 ^^ foundland, and even to Eng- 



^^~- land ; and they have re- 



cently been shown, by Dr. 

 C. Hart Merriam ("Popu- 

 lar Science Monthly," vol. 

 xxvii, p. 140), to be very 

 abundant in the St. Law- 

 rence River as far up as 

 the Saguenay. 



The hooded seal {Stem- 

 maiopus crisfatus, Fig. 3) 

 is distinguished from the 

 other species by a membra- 

 nous or muscular sac on the back of the head, which is penetrated 

 by chambers communicating with the noss, and may be inflated 



Fig. 1.— The ?eal (Phoca titulina). 



■The Greenland or Harp Seal (Phncc 

 landica). 



