CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE SEALS 



SEALS, which a few years ago abounded along 

 this coast, are now comparatively rare, and before 

 long will be entirely banished to the undisturbed 

 and unfrequented rocks of the more northern is- 

 lands.* The salmon-fishers on the coast wage a constant 

 war against them, in consequence of the great damage they 

 do to their stake-nets, which are constantly torn andinjured 

 by these powerful animals. Nor is the loss they occasion 

 to the salmon-fishers confined to the fish which they actu- 

 ally consume or to the nets that they destroy, for a seal 

 hunting along the coast in the neighbourhood of the stake- 

 nets keeps the salmon in a constantly disturbed state, and 

 drives the shoals of fish into the deep water, where they 

 are secure from the nets. There is consequently a constant 

 and deadly feud between the fishermenand the seals, which 

 has almost totally expelled the latter from this part of the 

 coast. An old seal has been known to frequent a particular 

 range of stake-nets for many years, escaping all attacks 

 against him, and becoming both so cunning and so impud- 

 ent that he will actually take the salmon out of the nets 

 (every turn of which he becomes thoroughly intimate with) 

 before the face of the fishermen, and retiring with his ill- 

 gotten booty, adds insult to injury by coolly devouring it 

 on some adjoiningpoint of rock or shoal, taking good care, 

 however, to keep out of reach of rifle-ball or slug. Some- 

 times, however, he becomes entangled in the nets, and is 

 drowned, but this seldom happens to a full-grown seal, who 



* St John does not distinguish between the species of seal. His observations probably 

 refer only to the Common Seal {Phoca vitulina). An Act of Parliament was passed in 

 1914 for the protection of the Grey Seal {Halichterus gryfm) which frequents the Scot- 

 tish and Irish coasts, and of which the young cannot take to the water. — Ed. 



369 2 A 



