1 8 SEALS AND WHALES OF THE BRITISH SEAS. 



time of the year firmly wedged against the shores of Grinnell Land, and so 

 tightly packed in Robeson Channel that no Seal could by any possibility 

 have worked its way into this inlet from outside. I am, therefore, quite 

 satisfied that Phoca Jiispida is resident throughout the year in the localities 

 mentioned. A female killed on the 23rd August, 1876, weighed 65 lbs." 

 This species has, therefore, probably the most northerly habitat of any 

 existing mammal. 



Dr. Brown, in his paper on the ' Greenland Seals ' (' Proc. Zool. Soc, 

 June, 1868,) gives an interesting account of this species, which, like the 

 preceding, is littoral in its habits, seldom frequenting the open sea, but 

 found generally in the neighbourhood of the coast ice, in retired situations. 

 It is known by the whalers as the " Floe rat," and its food consists of 

 various species of Crustacea and small fishes. This is the smallest of the 

 Northern Seals, and of very little commercial value : its flesh, however, is 

 eaten, and its skin forms the chief material of clothing in Greenland. 



In appearance, this species is very like the Common Seal; but it is darker 

 in colour, more particularly on the back, and the spots in the adult are 

 surrounded by oval-shaped whitish rings; the young ones are lighter in 

 colour. The old male is said to emit a most disgusting smell : hence one of 

 its specific names, "fcetida." Dr. Rink says that this unpleasant odour is 

 more developed in those which are captured in the interior ice-fjords, "which 

 are also, on an average perhaps, twice as large as those generally occurring 

 off the outer shores. When brought into the hut, and cut up on its floor, 

 such a Seal emits a smell resembling something between that of assafoetida 

 and onions, almost insupportable to strangers. This peculiarity is not notice- 

 able in the younger specimens, or those of a smaller size, such as are generally 

 caught, and at all events the smell does not detract from the utility of the 

 flesh over the whole of Greenland." * 



* ' Danish Greenland, its People and its Products,' p. 123. 



