596 PHOCA VITULINA HARBOE SEAL. 



alluded to, but this 'peculiarity is evidently not confined to the 

 Newfoundland representative of the species, as shown by the 

 following incident related by the writer last quoted. "On a 

 sunny noon in the autumn of 1868," says this observer, " I ob- 

 served a Seal, not far from the same place, with a salmon in 

 his mouth, which he forced through the meshes of a stake net. 

 The struggling salmon, whose head was in the jaws of the 

 Seal, struck the water ^^olently with his tail, which gleamed 

 like a lustre in the lessening ray. The Seal rose and sunk 

 alternately, keeping seaward to escape Eleys' cartridges from 

 the shore. When above the water he shortened the silver bar^ 

 which continued to lash his sides long after its thickest j)art 

 had disappeared, by rising to his perpendicular, as if to allow 

 the precious metal by its own weight to slip into his crucible. 

 The Seal evidently swallowed above, and masticated below, 

 water the process lasting about twelve minutes, during which 

 the Seal had travelled a full half-mile,"* 



In their raids ui^on the nets of the fishermen they become 

 sometimes themselves the victims, being in this way frequently 

 taken along our own coast as well as elsewhere. They are, 

 however, at all times unwelcome visitors. De Kay states that 

 formerly they were taken almost every year in the " fyke-nets " 

 in the Passaic Eiver, greatly to the disgust of the fishermen, 

 the Seals when captured making an obstinate resistance and 

 doing much injury to the nets. Their accidental capture in this 

 way often affords a record of their presence at localities they 

 are not commonly- supposed to frequent, as in the Chesapeake 

 Bay, and at even more southerly localities on the eastern coast 

 of the United States. 



Owing to the difficulty of capturing this species, and its com- 

 paratively small numbers, it is of little commercial imi^ortance, 

 although the oil it yields is of excellent quality, and its skins 

 are of special value for articles of dress, and other j)urposes, in 

 consequence of their beautifully variegated tints. Though not 

 a few are taken in strong Seal-nets, they are usually captured 

 by means of the rifle or heavy sealing gun. On rare occasions 

 they are surprised on shore at so great a distance from water 

 that they are overtaken and killed by a blow on the head with 

 a club. Like other species of the Seal family, the Harbor Seal 

 is very tenacious of life, and must be struck in a "\dtal part by 



*W. Craibe Angus, Zoologist, Sdser., vol. vi, 1871, pp. 2762, 2763. 



