HABITS, PRODUCTS, AND HUNTING 673 



species is strictly polygamous, the strongest males driving 

 away the younger ; yet the number of the females appears to 

 be not much greater than that of the males. He states that 

 one remarkable difference between the individuals found at the 

 southern breeding stations and those living farther north is 

 the different season at which the young are born. He says this 

 occurs in Norway in autumn. The Seals begin to gather at 

 the chosen breeding-place about the middle of September, and, 

 as a rule, the first young are born about the end of that month.* 

 Pairing takes place in the water very soon after the birth of 

 the young, and before the old Seals depart from the breeding- 

 places, which latter event occurs about the end of October. 

 About half of them, however, remain near the outer rocks 

 during winter.f 



According to von Heuglin, the female gives birth to her 

 single offspring in February or March, but Malmgren states 

 that he took a ripe foetus from the mother as late as the 31st of 

 May, and Kumlien says the young are born early in May. Fa- 

 bricius says late in April or early in May. Carroll, as already 

 noted, says the young are born late in March. As will be 

 noticed later, the exceptional record of an autumnal breeding 

 season for this species given by Collett, on the authority of a 

 correspondent, suggests the possibility that the species really 

 observed was Halichcerus grypus or the Gray Seal.f The earlier 

 breeding-time given by Carroll, for Newfoundland, may be due 

 to the locality being so far south. 



According to Malmgren, they do not frequent open water. 

 As long as the inlets and bays are closed with ice it keeps near 

 openings in the ice, through which it ascends to the surface to 

 rest, but when the fast ice breaks up it keeps among the float- 

 ing ice near the coast. It does not, however, follow the ice far 

 out to sea, but leaves it and seeks such shores as are skirted 

 with drifting ice. On the coast of Spitzbergen it is rarely met 

 with in summer, owing to the absence of ice, but as soon as the 

 ice again arrives, either from the south or the north, they ap- 

 pear in the bays in great numbers. In Northeast Land, where 

 the inlets are covered with ice till late in August, and where, 

 not far from the land, are many ice-floes, they are common the 

 whole summer. He states that during his stay in Hiulopen 



* See next paragraph and infra, p. 706. 



t Bemserkninger til Norges Pattedyrfauna, pp. 58-60. 



t See infra, p. 706. 



Misc.' Pub. No. 12 43 



