4 SEALS AND WHALES OF THE BRTTLSH SEAS. 



duced at a birth. Some species enter the water almost immediately after 

 birth, but others are two or three weeks before they leave the ice, quitting it 

 at first very unwillingly, but soon becoming expert at swimming and diving. 

 The power of the Seal to remain beneath the water for lengthened periods Dr. 

 Wallace * believes to be acquired rather than structural. Their food consists 

 of Crustacea and fish, with an occasional sea-bird. Some species are migratory 

 in their habits. In disposition they are usually timid and gentle, and capable of 

 attachment, when in confinement, to those who feed and attend them. The 

 Bladder-nose and Grey Seals, however, appear to be exceptions to this rule; 

 the former is said to be fierce and vindictive, rather courting than fleeing from 

 danger, and altogether a formidable opponent. Their great affection for their 

 young is made use of by the sealers for their destruction. 



Although Seals are not found in sufficient numbers round our own coast to 

 be of any commercial value, in the Northern Seas, where they congregate in 

 vast numbers at the breeding season, the seal-fishery is of great importance as 

 a branch of industry, and finds employment for a large number of vessels and 

 men, both from this country and from the ports of Northern Europe. In the 

 Greenland seal-fishery the Norwegian whalers had in 1874 sixteen steamers 

 and nineteen sailing-ships, with an aggregate tonnage of 9,000 tons, manned 

 by 1,600 sailors, and in the three years ending 1874 they killed 142,500 young 

 Seals and 128,000 old ones, notwithstanding which the balance-sheet of the 

 three years showed only a small profit on the steamers and a large loss on the 

 sailing vessels. f An official return issued by Messrs. David Bruce and Co., of 

 Dundee, shows that in the season of 1879, eleven Dundee ships and five from 

 Peterhead, were engaged in the Greenland seal-trade ; the total catch of these 



• Dr. Robert Brown on the ' Seals of Greenland.' Reprinted, with additions, in the ' Manual 

 and Instructions for the Arctic Expedition, 1875,' from the Proc. Zool. Soc, 1868, pp. 405-440. 



t Land and Waier, August 26th, 1875. 



