202 THE LABEADOR PENINSULA. cuap. xxxiv. 



open and close without warning, receive tlieir victims and 

 crush them in their embrace in the stormy swell of the 

 Gulf. 



The migrations of the seal are very singular, and pur- 

 sued apparently with the same undeviating instinct which 

 guides the water-fowl in their annual journeys. 



The Gulf of St. Lawrence forms the winter quarters of 

 a vast number of seals, who come through the Straits 

 of Belle Isle from Davis' Strait and the North Atlantic in 

 the month of November, while an equal number seek the 

 ice-floes north-east of Newfoundland, and are carried 

 toAvards the Grand Banks. 



Before the ice is formed, they ' hug ' the shore either of 

 Labrador or Newfoundland, penetrating into all the bays 

 and never going far from land. During the colder winter 

 months they strike into the Gulf, looking for ice-floes, on 

 which they give birth to their young in March, and con- 

 tinue for two or three months. In May and June they 

 congregate together near the coasts, and return to the 

 main ocean for the summer.* Seals are most powerful 



* ' Tlie seal or sea-calf is a carnivorous and amphibious animal, belonging 

 to the order mammalia. There are several varieties, three of which are 

 peculiarly deserving of attention : these are the Harbour Seal (Phoca vitu- 

 lina), whose average length is three feet ; the Harp Seal (Phoca Grcenlamlica), 

 whose average length is five feet ; and the Hooded Seal {Phoca leonina), 

 which is sometimes nine feet long, with a movable sack on its head, formed 

 of several folds of skin, with which it can cover its eyes and its muzzle at 

 will. 



' The two latter varieties assemble together in herds, and are migratory. 

 The harbour seals appear to live apart, and are to be met with in the same 

 places at all seasons of the year. 



'Seals have round elongated bodies, gradually diminishing in size from the 

 chest to the tail, and thickly covered with short smooth hair ; their lower 

 extremities are short, and end in webbed feet, something like the fins of the 

 cetacea, while the upper extremities, which are longer, but very strong and 

 muscular, and terminate in webbed hands^ resemble the fins of fishes. 



