SEALS AND WHALES OF THE BRITISH SEAS. 



bulked twice their load. No doubt Seals that are bulked are often picked 

 up by the crews of other vessels, but such is the law, that as long as the flags 

 are erected upon the bulks, and the vessel or steamship is in sight, no man 

 can take them, notwithstanding the vessel's or steamship's men that bulked 

 them may be ten miles away from them, whilst another vessel may be driven 

 within a quarter of a mile of thousands of bulked Seals, but, owing to the 

 law, dare not take them." The skins, if left, are also liable to injury by the 

 frost or sun, or by the capsizing of the pan they may be totally lost. In the 

 spring of 1872, some five thousand Seals, obtained to the westward of Bona- 

 vista, by the inhabitants of that place, were heaped upon the ice. " There 

 were thirteen flags to be seen in the morning over bulked Seals, and when the 

 drift ice struck the land in the evening, only six of the flags were visible, the 

 ice having rafted over both flags and Seals. Some days after, when the ice 

 moved off from the shore, several bulks of Seals were found, but in such a 

 putrid state that they could not be handled.* Comment upon the conse- 

 quences which must speedily result from such lamentable waste of life is 

 needless. 



Nor, until very recently, was the seal-fishery in the Greenland Seas 

 prosecuted with any greater regard to humanity or economy. " Supposing 

 the sealino" prosecuted with the same vigour as at present," says Dr. Brown, 

 " I have little hesitation in stating that before thirty years shall have passed 

 away, the seal-fishery, as a source of commercial revenue, will have come to 

 a close, and the progeny of the immense number of Seals now swimming 

 about in Greenland waters will number but comparatively few." Dr. Brown's 

 remarks were written in the year 1868, and the prediction is already virtually 

 fulfilled : a report, giving an account of the success of the Dundee vessels 

 employed in the Newfoundland seal-fishery in 1877, after stating that 39,000 



♦ ' Seal and Herring Fisheries of Newfoundland,' pp. 32-34. as quoted by Allen, /. c, pp. 551-3. 



