Harbour Seal 
The two northern species, more especially the harp seal, which is 
easily killed in numbers on its breeding ground, furnish most of 
the skins and oil of commerce. Their skins, however, while of 
considerabie value for leather, are not to be confused with the 
beautiful hides of the Alaskan fur seal or ‘‘sea bear” which 
furnish the valuable sealskin of the furrier. 
On the New England coast the harbour seals may be looked 
for at any time of the year, but farther south they are seldom 
seen except in winter, haunting inlets and the mouths of rivers. 
The first one that I ever had an opportunity of observing ! 
met in its native element in August. We were both swimming 
just inside the river’s mouth at Hampton, N. H.; its round head 
broke the surface between myself and the boat, showed wet and 
shining for a few seconds and was gone, to appear again 
bobbing around at the edge of the breakers on the bar. 
Seals appear to be the most abundant along the New Eng- 
land coast late in summer and autumn when they may be seen 
from time to time swimming by the headlands or sprawling on 
the wave-splashed rocks and beaches; the young are said to be 
born at this season in caves just out of reach of the tide. 
Although the seals are just as warm-blooded, air-breathing 
mammals as any, their race has lived in the sea for so long that 
they have become almost as aquatic as fish; in fact, fish chased 
by seals have been known to look for safety in the shallow 
ripples at the edge of the strand and on sand-flats, as if aware 
that their pursuers were even more incapable and helpless than 
themselves when partly ashore. The seals always seek protec- 
tion from their own enemies in deep water and fish there by 
preference. 
The common seal of our harbours appears to be as little 
adventurous and seafaring as any of its kind, keeping near the 
land at all times and hunting inlets and the mouths of rivers 
which it enters with the incoming tide, sometimes swimming 
inland for one hundred miles or more between wooded banks 
and farm-lands, where it may fish in still pools out of reach of 
the ocean’s growling. 
By nature it is gentle and affectionate, quickly becoming 
tame if well treated and fond of being caressed and made much 
of; a genial, well-meaning creature without much instinctive fear 
of man and eager to make friends with any animal that will 
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