Ill 



right way of taking it as well as a wrong, and we insist that the former 

 should be followed and the latter avoided. Before, however, entering 

 upon this topic, we take leave to remark that it is impossible to inves- 

 tigate, as we have done, the natural history of these animals without 

 discovering how much their capture has been made a matter of mere 

 amusement and, as it is familiarly but emphatically called, of sport. 

 We venture to denounce all such sports as both indefensible and wrong. 

 Animals have been given to provide for the necessities and comforts of 

 man, but not that he may gratify himself with their dying agonies; and 

 he is Avholly inexcusable if even here he breaks the golden rule of doing 

 as he woukl be done by. Sporting with the feelings, and pains and lives 

 of these creatures has a strong tendency to lead to cruelty and wicked- 

 ness; and, therefore, this inherent tendency should be checked in the 

 bud and invariably opposed. When we witness, says Peron, a thought- 

 less sailor hastening for his amusement, club in hand, into the midst 

 of a great herd and surrounding himself with their dead bodies, we 

 can not but sigh over this improvidence and cruelty which lays low so 

 many peaceful, gentle, and unhaj^py beings. 



While I have the book in hand, I will read other extracts in relation 

 to the docility of the seals, on pages 73 to 77 : 



At a particular season of the year, every male, inflamed with lust, 

 and jealous almost at its shadow, lords it over his numerous harem 

 with even more than eastern despotism, and thereby throws the whole 

 community into a state of the highest excitement and agitation. Dur- 

 ing this period, which continues for months, nniny a jealous Bashaw, 

 as these animals have not inaptly been designated, engages in fearful 

 strife with a rival; the contest is often long and obstinate, as well as most 

 sanguinary and fatal. Nor does it end with these doughty champions. 

 Other males soon imagine that their interests are involved, or their 

 rights invaded, and the strife spreads from family to family, till at 

 length the whole community is involved in one general melee of pas- 

 sion and rage, of fierce cries and groans, of blood and death; and, 

 after all, short is the trium])h of the conqueror, and deep and poignant 

 the chagrin and malice of the vanquished. 



Originally, and therefore we are disposed to liold that naturally, 

 these amphibia, far from having a dread, have rather a reposing con- 

 fidence in man. When a young one by an accident is separated from 

 its parents and comes in contact with man, instead of shunning it 

 courts its company. It will follow him, and if the finger be held out 

 will suck it like many domestic animals. Through the kindness of 

 Prof. Trail we can illustrate this trait in their mental constitution by 

 an interesting incident of which he was a witness, and wliicli, with 

 several other anecdotes, we can, through his polite attention, record in 

 his own words: "A little islet in Orkney, called the Holm of Papa 

 Westray,had long been a favorite haunt of numerous seals, which had 

 become more than usually tame from the care of the proprietor of the 

 adjoining island to prevent their being molested. On visiting that 

 gentleman in 1833 I found the seals exhibited their wonted confidence 

 in those who approached their protected haunt. Several of them swam 

 along the shore as a party of six or eight persons walked along the 

 beach, and did not in general keep farther from us than 30 or 40 yards. 

 When we turned so did they, and when we reentered our boat they 

 followed it in the narrow channel that divides Holm from the island of 

 Papa. Seals are said to relish uuisic, and a seal hunter once informed 



