404 RESULTS. 



Only the head of a seal appears for them to aim at. They are shooting 

 at a moving object from a moving boat, and it is 



T. T. WilUam»,p. 504. fatal, and pretend that 95 per cent of their shots 

 are absurd to that all the seals they kill are picked 

 up before sinking. It is as absurd as though a hunter on land should 

 boast of killing 95 per cent of all the birds he aimed at. There are a 

 few good seal hunters whose loss does not exceed 25 per cent, but they 

 are as well known in the North as champion baseball players in America, 

 and form but a small proportion of the 200 seal hunters who signed for 

 the trip this year. 



Many of the seals I have speared had shot and bullets in them. This 

 w . „ g _ was never seen before until about eight years 



ispoo, p. . a g ^ an( j now .^ j g a f re q uen ^ occurrence. 



A great many that I have caught in the last three or four years 



Tko S .Zolnoks,j>.m. haVe f bot iD them > aud man ^ baVtJ been ba(U y 

 '* wounded. 



SINKING. 



Page 194 of The Case. 



The white hunter in a boat, when a seal appears on the surface, if 

 within 50 yards, fires at it. If killed outright, 

 C. A. Abbey, p. 187. the seal immediately sinks, and the boat is rowed 

 for the place where it sank; but I do not think 

 they recover many seals thus killed, and every sealer stated that they 

 seldom expected to get a seal when killed outright. It is almost im- 

 practicable to take a seal iu the water unless it is wounded so that it 

 is stunned, when it goes into a "flurry," similar to that of a whale 

 when wounded. The boat then being pulled alongside, the seal is 

 gaffed and dragged into it. 



In sleeping, the seal's head is to leeward and the steerer will endeavor 

 to work the boat so as to approach from that di- 

 A. B. Alexander, p. 355. rection and give the hunter an opportunity to 

 shoot the seal in the back of the neck. When so 

 shot they take longer to sink than when shot in the lace, that is, if a 

 seal bobs up in the water, its body being in a submerged and horizontal 

 position, and if it be instantly killed by the shot it will at once sink. 

 It is then that the 8 or 10 foot gaff is used to recover it. It has been 

 my observation that the rapidity with which seals sink is influenced by 

 several conditions. A pregnant female will sink less quickly than a 

 male of equal size. If a seal be shot at a time when the air is well ex- 

 hausted in the lungs it will sink more quickly than if killed when the 

 lungs are inflated. If a seal is asleep and .shot in the back of the head 

 it will float for several minutes, thus enabling the hunter to secure it. 



Only such seals as are instantly disabled can be secured, and even 

 many of these must be lost, since the specific 



D m' A ' AUen ' voL h £ ravit y of a dead seal is g reater tllilu that of tn o 

 water in which it is killed. 



is r . IV. Anderson, p. 223. If seals are shot dead they must be picked up 

 at once or they will sink. 



