674 ERIGNATHUS BARBATUS BEARDED SEAL. 



Straits some Walrus-hunters shot about sixty of them in the 

 course of two or three days about the beginning of August, 

 and that his harpooners often killed them.* Von Heuglin also 

 refers to its partiality for the neighborhood of ice, and says 

 that on the coast of West Spitzbergen he saw it only in the vi- 

 cinity of the glaciers that reach the sea. Among the Thousand 

 Islands and in the Stor-Fjord he found it very common, but 

 always singly or in small companies, lie states, on the author- 

 ity of Sporer, that in Nova Zembla it rarely appears on the 

 northern shore of the islands, but commonly visits South 

 Island. He says that, although he saw it there only rarely, it 

 must be sometimes very numerous, as in the course of three 

 days as many as three hundred have been taken by the use of 

 three nets.t 



Malmgren states that the Bearded Seal is easily killed when 

 it is in the sea, as it is then not shy, but often comes so stupidly 

 and eagerly about the boat as to be very easily shot. When 

 lying on the ice he describes it as extremely watchful, so that 

 it is impossible to shoot it without using a shooting- screen, such 

 as the Greenlanders employ. f Mr. Kuinlieu, however, states 

 that during May and June, when they crawl out upon an ice- 

 floe to bask and sleep, they are easily approached by the 

 Esquimaux of Cumberland Sound in their kyacks and killed. 

 It is reported to subsist chiefly upon large mollusks and crus- 

 taceans. Malmgren records that in the stomachs of all he ex- 

 amined he found large species of Crangon and Hippolyte ( C. 

 boreas, Sabinea septemcarinata, Hippolyte polaris, H. sowerbyi, 

 and H. borealis), and Anonyx ampulla in abundance; occasion- 

 ally small fishes (Cottus tricmpis, Eeinh.), and many hundreds 

 of the opercula of species of Buccinum and Natica clausa, 'as 

 well as shells of a large Lamellaria. 



All writers, from the time of Oranz to the latest observers, 

 testify to its importance to the Esquimaux and other native 

 tribes of the shores it frequents. Its flesh or blubber is said to 

 be more delicate in taste than that of any other species, and to 

 be esteemed as a luxury. Its chief value, however, consists in its 

 skin, which, from its great thickness, is, according to Dr. Eink, 

 "the only one considered fit for making the hunting lines of the 

 kayakers." Yon Schrenck speaks of its being used by the na- 



* Arch, fur Naturg., 1864, pp. 74-75. 



t Reisen nach dem Nordpolarmeer in dem Jahren 1870 und 1871, p. 57. 



t Arch, fur Naturg., 1864, p. 77. 



Ibid., p. 75. 



