646 



PHOCA GRCENLANDICA HARP SEAL. 



Sey will run between a man's legs for protection ".* Doubtless 

 many young Seals not only become the prey of these creatures, 

 but also of the rapacious Orca, so well known to prey upon the 

 young of the Fur Seals. 



Food. Like all the Phocids, the Harp Seal is well known to 

 subsist chiefly upon fish, but also in part upon Crustaceans 

 and Mollusks. White-fish and the cod seem to form their chief 

 food off the shores of Newfoundland and Labrador, and from 

 the abundance of the Seals the quantity they consume must be 

 immense. It has even been supposed that the small catch of 

 codfish about the island of Newfoundland is due to the great 

 destruction of these fishes by the Seals, several millions of the 

 latter, it is estimated, spending several months of each year in 

 the vicinity of this island. Allowing only one fish a day to 

 each Seal during the time they stay about the island would re- 

 quire the annual destruction of several million quintals of these 

 fishes. In their southward migration in autumn along the 

 coast of Labrador, they are said to follow the schools of white- 

 fish, on which to a large extent they are also known to feed. 

 They also follow them into all the bays along the coast in 

 spring. "As long as white-fish are in with the land," says Mr. 

 Carroll, "so sure will seals of every description be there". 

 That they also prey upon the codfish is well proven by Seals 

 being killed with these fish in their mouths, as well as by find- 

 ing them on the ice to which the Seals have carried them. Mr. 

 Carroll believes that the greater the increase of Seals on the 

 Newfoundland coast the more will the codfish decrease on the 

 same coast. The scarcity of the one thus seems to imply the 

 abundance of the other, so that an abundance of Seals along a 

 coast where cod-fishing is prosecuted is not altogether an un- 

 mixed good. 



Hunting and Products. As so large a part of what has 

 been already said in the general account of the Seal-fishery of 

 the North Atlantic and Arctic waters necessarily relates to the 

 present species, it is scarcely requisite in the present connec- 

 tion to more than recall the leading points of the subject, with 

 the addition of a few details not previously given. As already 

 stated, the sealing-grounds par excellence are the ice-floes off the 

 eastern coast of Newfoundland and around Jan Mayen Island, 

 * Seal and Herring Fisheries of Newfoundland, p. 26. 



