734 CYSTOPHORA CRISTATA HOODED SEAL. 



and Newfoundland. As is the case with other pelagic species, 

 stragglers are sometimes met with far to the southward of the 

 usual range of the species. On the North American coast it 

 appears to be of uncommon occurrence south of the point 

 already mentioned, as it is said by Gilpin * to be "a rare vis- 

 itor to the shores of Nova Scotia." Like the Harp Seal, it ap- 

 pears also to be regularly migratory, but owing to its much 

 smaller numbers and less commercial importance, its move- 

 ments are not so well known. Carroll states that it visits the 

 coast of Newfoundland at the same time as the Harp Seal, or 

 about the 25th of February, the time, however, varying with 

 the state of the weather. He further states that Hooded Seals 

 always keep to the eastward of the Harp Seals, amongst the 

 heavy ice; also that they are quite numerous in spring in the 

 Gulf of Saint Lawrence, where '^ many of them are killed by 

 persons who reside on St. Paul's Island."! Dr. Packard states 

 that it " is not uncommonly, during the spring, killed in con- 

 siderable numbers by the sealers" along the coast of Labra- 

 dor.J Eink says, " It is only occasionally found along the 

 greater part of the coast [of Greenland], but visits the very 

 limited tract between 60 and 61 N. lat., in great numbers, 

 most probably in coming from and returning to the east side 

 of Greenland. The first time it visits ns is from about May 

 20 till the end of June, during which it yields a very lucrative 

 catch." Eobert Brown observes, " With regard to the favour- 

 ite localities of this species of Seal Cranz and the much more 

 accurate Fabricius disagree the former affirming that they are 

 found mostly on great ice islands where they sleep in an un- 

 guarded manner, while the latter states that they delight in 

 the high seas, visiting the land in April, May, and June. This 

 appears contradictory and confusing 5 but in reality both au- 

 thors are right, though not in an exclusive sense." Again he 

 says : " This Seal is not common anywhere. On the shores of 

 Greenland it is chiefly found beside large fields of ice, and 

 comes to the coast, as was remarked by Fabricius long ago, at 

 certain times of the year. They are chiefly found in South 

 Greenland, though it is erroneous to say that they are exclu- 

 sively confined to that section. I have seen them not uncom- 

 monly about Disco Bay, and have killed them in Melville Bay, 



* Proc. and Trans. Nova Scotia Inst. Nat. Sci., vol. iii, pt. 4, p. 884. 

 t Seal and Herring Fisheries of Newfoundland, pp. 13, 14. 

 t Proc. Boat. Soc. Nat. Hist., vol. x, p. 271. 

 $ Danish Greenland, etc., 1877, p. 126. 



