THE PRIMITIVE CARNIVORES 739 



hole bored in a seal- rock in such a manner that when a seal presses against the trig- 

 ger the weapon will be discharged into its body. 



A large number of seals are also shot on the shore with rifles; and others fall to 

 the harpoon of the Eskimo, who either steals up to them while asleep, or awaits 

 their rising at a breathing hole. When a large number of seals can be surprised on 

 shore at one of their favorite landing places, clubbing is resorted to as the most 

 effectual and speedy means of dispatch; and it is said that sometimes as many as 

 15,000 have been killed in this manner in one night. 



T The above methods apply only to sealing on or near the shore; but 

 turc on ice 



Floes f r t fle capture of seals on the ice floes at long distances from land, 

 vessels of some kind have to be especially equipped. In the Gulf of 

 Bothnia these expeditions are or were carried out in open boats, each manned by 

 eight sailors; but in the Newfoundland and Jan-Mayeu seas steamers of considerable 

 size are now employed. When the seals are found on the ice, they are killed in the 

 same way as on shore, that is, either by shooting, harpooning, or clubbing, 

 p d The most valuable product of the sealing industry is the oil, which 



is used both for lighting and for lubricating machinery. Writing in 

 1880, Mr. J. A. Allen states that the total annual quantity of seal oil then obtained 

 reached close on 90,000 barrels. Next in value to the oil are the skins, which are 

 manufactured into leather of various sorts; a large number being used for lacquered 

 leather. To the northern tribes seals are all important, furnishing not only the 

 greater part of their food, but likewise most of the materials from which their boats 

 and sledges are made, as well as their clothes and their hunting implements. 



THE PRIMITIVE CARNIVORES 



No account of the Carnivores would be complete without some reference, how- 

 ever brief, to a number of peculiar species occurring in the Miocene and Eocene 

 formations of Europe and America, which differ so remarkably from all living ter- 

 restrial representatives of the order, as to render it imperative to refer them to a 

 totally distinct group. These extinct primitive, or, as they are technically called, 

 Creodont Carnivores, differ from modern land Carnivores in the absence of a distinct 

 flesh-tooth in either jaw; all the molar teeth of each jaw being constructed on the 

 same plan, and the whole of those in the lower jaw being frequently like the single 

 flesh-tooth of other Carnivores. As a rule, the crowns of the upper molar teeth are 

 triangular in form, and of the type noticed on p. 344 in the first volume. And 

 whereas in all existing Carnivores the two bones in the upper row of the wrist tech- 

 nically known as the scaphoid and lunar, are completely welded together, in nearly 

 all the Creodonts they remain quite distinct. These and other characteristics indi- 

 cate that these primitive Carnivores are a much more generalized group than the 

 modern land Carnivores, of which they may have been the direct ancestors. More- 

 over, the teeth of many of these extinct forms are so like those of the carnivorous 

 Marsupials (although agreeing generally in number with the modern carnivorous 

 type, as exemplified by some of the dogs), that there is considerable probability 



