546 



FAMILY PHOCID^. 



In addilrion to tUe above, the Caspian Seal (Phoca caspica) is 

 extensively hunted in the Caspian Sea, and Sea-Elephants on 

 the coast of J^ower California and in the Antarctic seas. 



Abxjnd.4:nce of Seals at particular Localities. Re- 

 spectiivg- the abundance of Seals, particularly at certain localities, 

 an(l,' the ease with which they are taken, a few excerpts may 

 iierebe added to the various incidental references to the subject 

 already made in the general account of Seal-hunting-. Mr. H. T. 

 Hind states that "On March 24, 1857, large ice-fields, driven 

 by the ^. and N. W. wind, grounded on the coast of Amherst 

 Island, one of the Magdalen group, and were found to be a 

 vast ' seal meadow.' Not less than 4,000 of these animals, nearly 

 all young, were killed in five days." * 



Drs. Koldewey and Pansch, of the German Arctic Expedition 

 of 18G9-70, make the following statement : 



"The whitish colored young stay on the ice the first few days, 

 and are then killed with clubs by the parties of seal-hunters. 

 . . . The number caught by a single Bremen shiji now some- 

 times amounts to 8 to 10,000 seals ; and one may form some idea 

 of the war of destruction waged against these harmless crea- 

 tures by man, when we hear that of European ships in 1868, five 

 German, five Danish, fifteen I:Torwegiau, and twenty-two British, 

 which were in company in West Greenland, obtained 237,000." f 



Mr. Eobert Brown states that in the Spitzbergen Sea, the 



Greenland Seals, at the time of bringing forth of the young, 



" may be seen literally covering the frozen waste as far as the 



eye can reach with the aid of a telescope from the 'crow's nest' 



at the main-roj'al masthead, and have, on such occasions, been 



calculated to number u^iwards of half a million of males and 



females."! It is little wonder that, at such times, but more 



especially after the young are born and rest helplessly upon 



the ice, a ship's crew will secure several hundreds in a single 



day, and quickly fill their vessels with cargoes of ten thousand 



Seals. 



products. 



So much has been already said, incidentally, in relation to 

 the products of the Seals and their commercial importance 

 that little need here be added. Of chief importance is the 

 oil, so well known for its valuable properties for illuminating 



* Expl. ill Labrador, vol. ii, p. 207. 



t German Arct. Exped. 1859-70, Eng. ed., 1874, pp. 61, 62. 



]:Proc. Zool. Soc. Lou., 1858, p. 418. 



