SEALS. 215 



that I found it best to move my camp every night. They 

 are generally trapped in Anticosti by means of rope snares 

 set in their paths. The skins are very easily saved in the 

 spring of the year, as the animals are then lean. The 

 method I adopted was to sprinkle the hide with salt, and 

 roll it up for twenty-four hours. I then stretched it, fur 

 down, on a dry bank, and in three or four days the sun 

 thoroughly dried it. 



" Seals, as might be expected, are very numerous on 

 this coast. In the early part of June I camped for two or 

 three days at a place called Lac Le Croix, where a long 

 strip of rocks that make out into the sea is a favourite 

 haunt of the seals. At this season they have their cubs 

 with them, generally three, and they are as playful as 

 kittens. I have watched the old woman playfully knock- 

 ng the young ones off a rock with her fore flipper. The 

 little fellows would then swim round and come up on the 

 other side of the rock, when the operation would be 

 repeated. The poor little fellows cannot dive, they are so 

 fat that they won't sink ; so they put their heads under 

 the water, and fancy they are all right. Donald always 

 carried a gaff in the bow of the canoe, with which he 

 secured many a young seal, which we killed for the sake 

 of the skins. Besides the common round seal, there is 

 another 'sort in Anticosti, that my Indians called ' horse- 

 heads.' They are immense speckled monsters, as big as a 

 heifer. I shot a few of them in the following manner. 

 Donald, gracefully robed in a dirty blanket, would lie flat 

 on a rock in a conspicuous position, whilst I concealed 

 myself a short distance off. When a 'horse-head* ap- 

 peared above the surface, Donald grunted, bellowed, 



