WHALING 279 
The skins are prized by the natives owing to their fur-like 
character and beauty of colour. They are dressed with the hair 
on, and are chiefly used for women's garments, fancy bags and 
for the boot-legs of dandies. 
The flesh and blubber, especially of the older and larger 
freshwater seals, have a disagreeable odour and taste, and conse- 
quently are not so highly prized by the natives as are those of 
the following species. 
Pagomys foetidus, fab.-the ringed seal, or Jar (nietshik, 
Eskimo), is the common small seal of all the coasts. 
The variations in size, markings and colour, due to age, have 
led to this seal being classed under several species. 
Its flesh is the chief article of diet of the natives the year 
round, while its skin when dressed with the hair is used for 
clothing, tentings and bags; when dressed by removing the hair, 
it is used as covering for the kyak and for boot-legs. The 
blubber, burned in stone lamps, is the chief source of artificial 
heat. 
The young are born in March in snow-houses scraped out by 
the female from a snow-bank, close to an air-hole on the ice. 
When born they have a glistening white coat of soft hair. 
Pagophilus groenlandicus, mull.-the Harp seal, Saddle- 
back, Bedlamiers, (Kirolik, Eskimo,) supplies fully two-thirds 
of the seals taken annually off the coasts of Newfoundland in 
the spring, when the females give birth to their young on the 
floating ice of the Arctic pack. The Harp seal is more or less 
common on the northern coasts, and southward along the 
Atlantic coast of Labrador, at all seasons. In Hudson strait 
they are rare in summer, but are not uncommon after the shore- 
ice forms in the autumn, and before it leaves in the early 
summer. These seals commonly travel in bands, and are known 
by their habit of frequently leaping from the water. They are 
