PHOCA HISPEDA. 149 



(PJioca vitulina), called by the hunters the "Stein- 

 Cobbe," from his habit of occasionally lying on the 

 rocks,* dives by suddenly dropping himself under 

 water, his nose being the last part of him which 

 disappears, instead of his tail, as with his great con- 

 geners Phoca barbata and the walrus. 



The small seal has a very fine spotted skin, and 

 is about sixty or seventy pounds in weight ; he is 

 much fatter, in proportion to his size, than PJioca 

 barbata, and his carcass, in consequence, having less 

 specific gravity in proportion to its bulk, he floats 

 much longer after he is killed in the water, so that 

 they are seldom lost after being shot. I have fre- 

 quently shot these small seals from the deck of the 

 vessel while under easy sail, and have had time to 

 lower a boat from the davits, row back to the seal, 

 and lift him up by the flipper. 



There is also a third variety of seal found in the 

 Spitzbergen seas (Phoca hispida ? ), the springer or 

 Jan Mayen seal, as he is called by the hunters. 

 This is the seal which we read of being killed in 

 the spring months in such prodigious numbers by 

 the whalers among the vast ice-fields around Jan 

 Mayen's Island, far to the west of Spitzbergen. 



These seals, although existing in such enormous 

 numbers to the west, are not nearly so numerous in 

 Spitzbergen as the great, or even as the much less 

 abundant little seal. They are gregarious, which 



* The great Spitzbergen seal is never known to lie on the 

 rocks or land. 



