Scientific work on the First Tliule Expedition 1912. 405 



7. Ringed Seal. Phoca joetidd). 



On the 6th April near Herbert Island we saw the two first seals 

 of the year, at a spot where the ice was thin on account of the current. 

 We also took a young one alive in a birth cave beside an iceberg close by. 



On the 1st June we shot a seal on the ice in Danmarks Fjord. It 

 was an old and evil-smelling male, with teeth much worn, and 

 scars of many bites on body and limbs. The breathing hole through 

 which it had emerged was bored up through two old ice floes. The "thin" 

 ice over the crack was 2.18 m thick, the old ice more than 5.60 m (we 

 had nothing longer with which to measure it). This was the only seal 

 we saw in Danmarks Fjord. 



Length down back 1.63 metres: from point of flipper to do. (across 

 back) 1.11 metres. The stomach contained two fish bones and a quantity 

 of intestinal worms. 



In Independence Fjord we found seals in great numbers, for the 

 most part at the base of the fjord, near the glaciers. 



On the 5th June we saw two seals near the same breathing hole 

 in the ice. 



On the 8th June \ve saw first two and later three ringed seals, each 

 group with but one breathing hole in common. By the tent rings on 

 either side of the mouth of Brønlunds Fjord we found a number of bones 

 of ringed seal; these animals had thus evidently formed the staple food 

 of the now extinct Eskimos. 



On the 9th June we saw a number of seals on the ice about here. 

 Shot two, one male and one female, both with empty stomachs. The 

 female very fat, had born no young this year {mammas hirsute) length 

 down back 1.60 metres. Male; length down back 1.68 m,, from 

 point of flipper to do. 1.09 metres. Both very light in colour. From this 

 time onwards seals are to be seen everywhere on the ice. 



12th June. Shot a ringed seal. Length down back 1.31 metres, from 

 point of fore flipper to do. 0.87 metres. Nothing in stomach. 



On the 13th June we passed several hundred seals on the ice; at 

 one fissure there were 29, each close beside the other. Shot four, all 

 males, nothing in stomachs. Measurements as follows: 



I. Length down back 1.47 point of flipper to do. 0.91 m 



II. _ _. _ 1.60 — — — 0.98 m 



III. — — _ L15 _ _ _ 0.785 m 



IV. — _ _ 1.35 _ _ _ 0.92 m 



On the 14th June a ringed seal came up in the narrow channel which 

 had thawed out between the ice and the shore. Very shallow here, the 

 sandy bottom sloping gently down. 



On the 15th June we shot three seals. One not measured; nothing 

 in stomach. 



