120 THE INHABITANTS OF THE SEA. 
the bountiful sea teems with fishes, affording abundance to the 
hungry seals. The Merlangus polaris and the Ophidiwm 
Parry in the northern hemisphere, as well as the Nothothenia 
phoce, which Dr. Richardson discovered off Kerguelen’s Land, 
seek in vain to escape from the pursuit of the seals in the 
nollows and crevices of the pack-ice; and these small fish, in 
turn, fare sumptuously upon the minute crustaceans and mol- 
luses with which those cold waters abound. Thus animal life, 
but sparingly diffused over the barren land, luxuriates in the 
sea, where we find one species preying upon the other, until at 
last, at the bottom of the scale, we come to creatures so small 
as to be invisible to the naked eye. 
The Greenland Esquimaux, whose ice-bound fatherland affords 
no food but berries, is also obliged to look to the sea for his 
subsistence; and the seal plays as important a part in his 
humble existence as the reindeer among the Laplanders, or the 
camel among the Bedouins of the desert. Its flesh and fat 
form his principal food; from its skin he makes his boat, his 
tent, his dress; from its sinews and bones, his thread and 
needles, his fishing line, and his bow-strings. Thus on the 
frozen confines of the Polar Sea, as in many other parts of the 
world, we find the existence of man almost entirely depending 
upon that of a single class of animals. But the Bedouin who 
tends the patient dromedary, or the Laplander who feeds on 
Esquimaux in his Kayak. 
the flesh and milk of the domesticated reindeer, enjoys an easy 
life when compared to the Esquimaux, who, to satisfy the cravings 
of his sharp appetite, is in all seasons obliged to brave all the 
perils of the Arctic Ocean. Sometimes he waits patiently for 
hours in the cold fog until a seal rises to the surface, or else he 
warily approaches a herd basking or sleeping on the ice blocks, 
