204 THE LABRADOR PENINSULA. chap, xxxiv. 



of rivers on the coast, often ascends far above tide- water ; 

 and it appears to thrive equally well, for a time, in salt, 

 brackish, or sweet water. These animals have been killed 

 in the St. Lawrence as high as Montreal,* and no ordinary 

 rapid is capable of arresting their progress where salmon 

 or other kinds of fish are abundant. These harbour seals 

 are killed with swan shot : a very slight wound is sufficient 

 to destroy hfe ; and as they sink the moment they are 

 dead, it requires some skill to shoot a seal and paddle the 

 canoe towards it in time to seize the animal before it 

 sinks. 



Seals have been the chief cause of the wars between 

 the Montagnais and Esquimaux of the Labrador Penin- 

 sula, and most of the conflicts between these people have 

 taken place at the estuaries of rivers known to be favour- 

 ite haunts of the seal. 



The names of some of the capes on the North Coast are 

 derived from the habits of this animal, as Nat-ash-quan, 

 ' Where the seals land,' opposite the north point of Anti- 

 costi, a spot famous for the vast numbers of seals which 

 are taken off the point. In 1857, about the end of April, 

 Mr. Vignault sailed in his schooner of forty tons, and 

 manned by seven men, out of Natashquan Harbour ; he 



* The seal is a very old. frequenter of tlie Gulf of St. Lawrence. In past 

 geologic ages this animal sported in the seas washing the base of Montreal 

 niountam, 140 feet above the present level of the ocean. In one of the clay- 

 pits on Coteau Baron, near to Montreal, the pelvic bones of a seal, accom- 

 panied by sea-shells and by fragments of white cedar, have been discovered. 

 In another pit at the same altitude, the entire skeleton of the Greenland seal 

 {Phoca GramhuuUca), a species still living in the Gulf, has been disinterred. 

 Above the plateau, where the bones of the seals were found, well-marked 

 sea-mai'gins occur on the sides of the mountain, at elevations of 220, 386, 

 440, and 470 feet above the present sea-level, with marine shells up to the 

 last-mentioned heights. — Geological Survey of Canada. 



