306 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 



from his hole (enlarged by his teeth, or by the thaw, till it will 

 let him up) or from the lead in which he has been swimming. He 

 is always fearful of polar bears. When he wants to come up and 

 bask, he spies out the situation by bobbing up from the water as 

 high as he can, lifting his head a foot or two above the general ice 

 level. This he does at intervals for some time — perhaps for hours — 

 until he concludes there are no bears around and ventures to hitch 

 himself out on the ice. 



Here follows another period of extreme vigilance during which 

 the seal lies beside his hole ready to dive in again at the slightest 

 alarm. Eventually, however, he begins to take the naps that were 

 his desire in coming out of the water. But his sleep is restless 

 through fear of bears. He takes naps of thirty or forty or fifty 

 seconds or perhaps a minute. Then he raises his head ten or 

 fifteen inches from the ice and spends five to twenty seconds in 

 making a complete survey of the horizon before taking another 

 nap. A nap of three minutes is protracted slumber for a seal, 

 although far away from land and in other regions where bears are 

 few or absent I have seen them sleep for five and six minutes. 



In rare cases basking seals will be found lying within rifle 

 shot from an ice hummock or land, and can be shot from cover. 

 Ordinarily, however, they select a level expanse of ice. In that 

 case they will see the hunter long before he gets near enough to 

 shoot. An essential of a successful hunt is therefore to convince 

 the neal that you are something that is not dangerous. He may 

 see you move and so you must convince him that you are some 

 harmless animal. 



There are only three animals with which seals are familiar — 

 bears, white foxes and other seals. It would not serve the hunter 

 to pretend he is a bear, for that is the one thing the seal fears. 

 This consideration shows you must not wear white clothes for the 

 advantage of "protective coloration" on the white ice. The seal 

 will probably see you, and if he sees something suspicious and 

 white he will think of a bear and dive instantly. You cannot very 

 well pretend to be a fox for they are not much larger than cats, are 

 very agile and continually keep hopping around. That part you 

 would fail in playing. But if you are dressed in dark clothing 

 and are lying fiat on the ice you look at a distance much like a 

 seal and you will find by trying it that you can imitate his ac- 

 tions successfully. 



You can learn the auktok method of sealing from an Eskimo if 

 you are among some group who practice it, but there are several 



