G4 ADVENTURES IN THE NORTHERN SEAS. 



100 yards \V This may be true, my gallant volun- 

 teer or skillful gunmaker, but you have not yet 

 taken into account that the boat is heaving more 

 or less from the motion of the waves, and that the 

 slab of ice on which your orange is lying is heaving 

 also ; and this, upon consideration^ you will admit 

 increases the " difficulty" a little ; neither Lord Da- 

 vid Kennedy nor myself were altogether tyros in 

 the use of the rifle before we began, but we found 

 the difficulty considerable ; however, after a few 

 days we became adepts at it, and rarely missed kill- 

 ing a seal dead. The rifles we both used were el- 

 liptical, four-barreled Lancaster's of 40-gauge. Dur- 

 ing the last 100 or 150 yards of the boat's approach 

 to the seal, the steersman alone propels it by gently 

 paddling it with two pars, one eye on the seal and 

 the other on his oars ; if the seal looks in the direc- 

 tion of the boat, he stops rowing, and great care is 

 requisite on his part to avoid coming against pieces 

 of ice, which make a rasping noise, almost sure to 

 attract the attention of the seal. I need hardly ob- 

 serve that the boat must also keep carefully to lee- 

 ward, as the seal has an acute sense of smell ; and 

 if the advantage of the sun can be obtained in ad- 

 dition, as in the case above related, the moments of 

 Phoca barbata are probably numbered. I always 

 knelt in the bow of the boat, and selected my own 

 opportunity to fire, and, the moment the rifle was 

 discharged, all the men rowed with their utmost 

 strength to the spot, where, if the seal showed any 



