HUNTING SEALS AND MORSES. 397 



A MORSE. 



numbers, and confined them within much narrower bounds 

 than they previously were. Any one will readily understand 

 that seals are much more likely to have their numbers thinned 

 in this way than fishes ; because they produce only one or two 

 young ones at a time, while the fishes produce thousands or 

 even millions. What man can capture by all his arts of fair 

 fishing in the sea is not missed in the multitude of his finny 

 prey ; but it must tell in the case of the seals. Seals are also 

 far more wary and sagacious animals than fishes ; and thus, 

 when they are greatly molested on one ground, they are very 

 apt to shift to another. Hence those of the North Atlantic 

 became so much thinned, that adventurers, chiefly English or 

 American, have sought for them in all the inhospitable regions 

 of the south. Those fishing expeditions to the south, having 

 originated in a more enlightened and liberal age than those 

 of the north, have tended to increase our knowledge of those 

 remote seas. These discoveries indeed have done little more 

 than show that there really is nothing to be discovered except 

 a few wild rocks covered with snow for the greater part of 

 the year : and affording resting places for seals and sea-birds 

 only. But this is something, as it prevents waste of time, 

 which would otherwise be occasioned in seeking that which is 

 not to be found. Mr. Weddel, of the brig Jane of Leith, 



34 



