Extracts from Diary of Nicolai Hanson. loi 



number of the White Seal, Xo?>o(?07?- carcinophagus ; some of thein were 

 immensely big animals. Here seemed a fine opportunity to get some good 

 skins for the collection. There were about three Lobodon to every 

 Leptoniicliotes. We walked about for a long time looking at the animals. 

 It was like looking into an immense aquarium, as they were not in the least 

 shy, and we might have touched them with our hands if we had wished. 

 On the ice close by the side of the lane we found a fish, very much like a 

 herring, five inches long. It was a new species for the collection, and 

 presumably it had been frightened out of the water by the Seals. But it 

 was of no use to us to be only looking at the Seals ; we had to secure a 

 couple of them before the twilight disappeared and darkness set in. 

 We had only one seal -pick, and with only this it was difiicult, not to 

 say impossible, for one man to drag these large animals up on the ice. 

 We had to shoot them first and drag them up with the pick afterwards. 

 A Seal, which was splashing in the water close by the edge of the ice, was 

 approached by us. I held my rifle in readiness and fired the ball into 

 his neck, and he was dead immediately ; Ole drove the pick into his neck, 

 but although we thought we had a good hold of the animal, the pick slipped, 

 and the Seal sank like a stone before we could get a new hold on him. 

 The next one was also a large White Seal, but this sank so immediately 

 after the shot that it was impossible to get hold with the pick. Seals lay 

 blowing everywhere in the lane, but it took some time befox'e any of them 

 came to the spot where we had shot the two : but as this was by far the 

 best place for hauling them up, we stayed there waiting for them to come 

 near. After a quarter of an hour three came up close to me, and Ole stood 

 ready with the pick, and soon the finest and biggest of the three lay dead 

 with a ball between the eyes ; but it took the strength of all five of us 

 to haul him up on the ice. It was a male Seal, more than eight feet long, 

 and very fat. I did not intend to shoot any more, but while I stood and 

 skinned the one I had shot, a large Seal came and laid himself nicely up 

 for a shot. In the next second he had a ball crashing through his head. 

 When we got this Seal on the ice, I found it to be a female, and, to judge 

 by her circumference, with young, so I did not regret having killed her, 

 as I now could get the embryo from this Seal, and thereby the time 

 of pairing approximately fixed. It was now quite dark, so we had to 

 light our lanterns before we were half through with our work. We found 

 large quantities of the above-mentioned herring-like fish in the stomachs 

 of these two Seals, and these were so recently swallowed that I took some 

 of them for the collection. The embryo was two feet long, and had 

 just begun to get hair on its body. With the skin and flesh of one 

 Seal and the embryo on a sledge, we started for camp. The other Seal 

 we left behind to be fetched to-morrow or a following day. It was, 

 however, easier said than done to pull the heavily-laden sledge along in 

 the dark, as the ice was full of hummocks screwed up by the motion of the 

 ice. By heavy pulling, and by one of us going before with a lantern 

 to pick out the way, we had at last gone so far that we thought the 

 worst of the job was over, when suddenly the sledge capsized on a little 

 hummock, and broke one of the runners. Dark as it was, there was 

 now nothing else for us to do than to let the sledge with the skin 

 and the flesh lie where it fell and proceed to camp with the rest of 

 the load. During the whole trip the temperature was down to — 32° Fahi-. 



