496 FAMILY PHOCID^. 



than their smaller afSnes, and do not voluntarily retire so far 

 inland. 



SEAL-HUNTING. 



The pursuit of Seals for their commercial products, forms, as 

 is well known, a highly important branch of industry, giving 

 employment for a considerable part of each year to hundreds of 

 vessels and thousands of seamen, as well as to many of the in- 

 habitants of the Seal-frequented coasts of Newfoundland, Green- 

 land, and I^orthern Europe. Although these animals are desti- 

 tute of the fine soft coat of under-fur that gives to the Fur Seals 

 their great economic imj)ortance, their oil and skins render them 

 a valuable booty. Seals have been hunted from time immemo- 

 rial, but until within the last hundred years their pursuit was 

 limited to the vicinity of such inhabited coasts as they were 

 accustomed to frequent. For nearly a century, however, a 

 greater or less number of vessels have been constantly employed 

 in their capture on the ice-floes of the Arctic seas, or on the 

 uninhabited coasts and islands of the far North. This industry, 

 therefore, plays an important part in the history of the species 

 here under consideration, and is, moreover, of such high com- 

 mercial importance as to render a somewhat detailed account 

 of the general subject indispensable in the present connection. 

 As all the species hunted in the northern waters belong to the 

 North American fauna, the consideration of the subject involves 

 other hunting-grounds than those geographically connected 

 with the North American continent. Although the priucijial 

 sealing-grounds are in the North Atlantic and Arctic Oceans, 

 there were formerly other important sealing-stations on the coast 

 of Lower California and in the Antarctic waters. Here, how- 

 ever, the business was mainly limited (aside from the Fur-Seal 

 fishery, already considered) to Sea-Elephant hunting, which has 

 of late greatly declined in importance in consequence of the 

 well-nigh practical extermination of the species hunted, through 

 indiscriminate and injudicious over-hunting. Yet some notice 

 of what Sea-Elephant hunting has been, as well as its present 

 status, may not be out of place in the present general consider- 

 ation of the subject. 



Seal-hunting Districts in the North Atlantic and 

 Arctic Waters. The principal "Sealing-grounds" in the 

 North Atlantic and Arctic Oceans are : (1) the West Greenland 

 coasts; (2) Newfoundland, the coast of Labrador, and the islands 



