CONCERNING FUR SEALS 133 



cona of Hudson's Bay fame spent his youth and where Dr. Grenfell 

 to-day has transformed the lives of a whole suffering population of 

 deep-sea fishermen. 



Who of us then suspected the" little Harp would ever be rated 

 as a fur ? Fur ! Worthless ! They laughed at my tenderfoot 

 questions and pitied my ignorance. Yet last winter I saw Harp 

 Seal coats on women who were leaders of fashion in Europe and 

 America. I took tea last winter at the Colony Club, New York, 

 with two Harp Seal coats ; and as I listened to the chatter of fashion 

 and fun, I kept hearing the sing of the wind in our mast off Labrador, 

 the swish of backwash in an October storm, that had wrecked twelve 

 fishing vessels, and the whimper, whimper, of the young Harps, who 

 looked up at us from the desolate rocks. 



The fur trade has moved at a swift pace in these intervening 

 years. 



The little spotted Harp easily yields Newfoundland a quarter 

 of a million dollars a year, and if the fashion for Harp fur increases, 

 he will yield more. I do not think the Harp will be easily exter- 

 minated ; but it is up to Newfoundland to have a care. Who can 

 say ? He is amply protected by the danger of the quest in spring 

 and the frightful mortality among the sailors ; but that did not 

 save the Sea Otter. 



The baby Harp has a thick coat of thick, almost woolly fur, 

 white as snow, soft as swan's down. This is shed within a few 

 months and replaced by a bluish spotted hair fur. The fur is thick 

 and the hide tough as shoe leather. He should be a good wearer. 

 If he is, let Newfoundland be ten times more careful to forefend 

 depletion. The Harp is now hunted only in spring. If he were 

 hunted in summer, he would go the way of Sea Otter. Hunted 

 he will never be in winter. The gales beating an iron coast of pre- 

 cipitous rock forfend against that ; but summer hunting or hunting 

 before the mother brings forth her young brings its own Nemesis ; 

 and that is the end of the fur. 



