CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE SEALS 



pellets of large hail in his craig." 



Another day.in the month of July, when shooting rabbits 

 on the sand-hills, a messenger came from the fishermen at 

 the stake-nets, asking me to come in that direction, as the 

 "muckle sealgh" was swimming about, waiting for the fish 

 to be caught in the nets, in order to commence his de- 

 vastation. 



I accordingly went to them, and having taken my ob- 

 servations of the locality and the most feasible points of 

 attack, I got the men to row me out to the end of the stake- 

 net, where there was a kind of platform of netting, on which 

 I stretched myself, with a bullet in one barrel and a cart- 

 ridge in the other. I then directed the men to row the boat 

 away, as if they had left the nets. They had scarcely gone 

 three hundred yards from the place when I saw the seal, 

 who had been floating, apparently unconcerned, at some 

 distance, swim quietly and fearlessly up to the net. I had 

 made a kind of breastwork of old netting before me, which 

 quite concealed me on the side from which he came. He 

 approached the net, and began examining it leisurely and 

 carefully to see if any fish were in it; sometimes he was 

 under and sometimes above the water. I was much struck 

 by his activity while underneath, where I could most plain- 

 ly see him, particularly as he twice dived almost below my 

 station, and the water was clear and smooth as glass. 



I could notget a good shot at him for some time; at last, 

 however, he put up his head at about fifteen or twenty 

 yards distance from me; and while he was intent on watch- 

 ing the boat, which was hovering about waiting to see the 

 result of my plan of attack, I fired at him, sending the ball 

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