SEA-LIONS AND FUR-SEALS. 339 



and perpetuation of the colony, and make it probable that, unless 

 some unforeseen disaster befalls it, it will never be less productive 

 than it is now. 



The seals of the Greenland seas were hunted a few years ago 

 by fleets from Peterhead, Scotland. At present, Dundee is the 

 only port in Great Britain that sends out vessels to the seal and 

 whale fishings. Wherever the animals frequented, they were 

 found, like the eared seals of the Pribylov Islands, in great herds 

 together; but would collect in the largest number* in stormy 

 weather, when they would seek the places free from ice, and there 

 gambol lustily. The older seals, according to Mr. James Thorn- 

 ton, who derived his knowledge from frequent conversations with 

 the ship-masters, pursue their prey with great rapidity, and when 

 they come across a shoal of herrings, consume innumerable multi- 

 tudes of them. They become very drowsy when basking in shoals 

 on the edge of the ice with their young, and in this state are sur- 

 prised by the boats' crews.. Most of the victims are secured by 

 clubbing, as at the Pribylov Islands, but the aid of the harpoon is 

 sometimes called in when the old ones show fight. The Green- 

 landers, in hunting for seals, find a hole in the ice to which the 

 animal has to come up to breathe. As soon as he puts his nose 

 up, a harpoon is sent into it ; the surrounding ice is then broken 

 up and the victim is hauled in and dispatched with a club. The 

 harp-seal is far more idle and wary than the common seal. " It 

 allows itself to be approached by a small boat sufficiently near to 

 be struck by a harpoon with a bladder attached by a long string ; 

 the moment the animal is pierced he starts ofi:' and dives, bul;; the 

 bladder is a tell-tale, and he is followed and repeatedly struck by 

 an unbarbed lance until quite exhausted, when the man dispatches 

 and takes possession of his prize." 



The West Indian seal {Monaclius tropicalis) was observed by 

 Columbus in 1494, and has since been noticed at scattering times, 

 but the traces of it had recently been nearly lost. Prof. Henry 

 A. Ward, when on a visit to Yucatan and the Triangles in 1886, 

 found several specimens of the animal, and was able to examine 

 it in the adult and foetal conditions. According to his account in 

 the " American Naturalist," the head is large and prominent, and 

 the whole body chunky, with the bones deeply imbedded in flesli 

 and fat. The eye of the adult is very dull, having over the cor- 

 nea a film which gives it " much the same appearance as a glass 

 eye or a marble that has been so much handled as to lose its pol- 

 ish." The whole character of the seal is one of tropical inactivity ; 

 and this was exemplified by the presence of a growth of minute 

 algse on the backs and flippers of some of the animals that made 

 them look green. They were never seen to raise their heads 

 above the line of the back, as the harbor seal is accustomed to 



