254 THE BOOK OF MIGRATORY BIRDS 



neck, give an angry "wurr," fly at them, and scratch 

 them with her sharp claws, making the fur fly. At other 

 times, seeing men approaching, a mother will occasion- 

 ally snatch up her young one, dive under the ice with it, 

 and carry it for the time out of the reach of danger. The 

 male seals, on the other hand, never lose an opportunity 

 of worrying the young, taking them in their teeth and 

 shaking them as a terrier will a rat. 



Speaking of the Arctic seals, may I digress somewhat, 

 if I have not already trespassed from the subject of birds 

 too long, by quoting the substance of a report which an 

 Arctic traveller made upon the folklore of the Faroe Isles, 

 in relation to seals : 



Anyone versed in natural history will know that Ice- 

 land and the Faroe Islands abound with seals so much 

 so that in the folklore of these localities legends are 

 common connecting the human race with the animals 

 thus : 



. Seals have their origin in human beings who of their 

 own free will have drowned themselves in the sea. Once 

 a year on Twelfth Night they slip off their skins and 

 amuse themselves like men and women in dancing and 

 other pleasures in the caves of the rocks and the big 

 'hollows of the beach. A young man in the village of 

 Mygledahl, in Kalsoe, had heard talk of this conduct of 

 the seals, and a place in the neighbourhood of the village 

 was pointed out to him where they were said to assemble 

 on Twelfth Night. In the evening of that day he stole 

 away thither and concealed himself. Soon he saw a vast 

 multitude of seals come swimming towards the place, cast 

 off their skins, and lie down upon the rocks. He noticed 

 that a very fair and beautiful girl came out of one of the 

 sealskins and lay down not far from where he was hidden. 

 Then he crept towards her and took her in his arms. The 

 man and the seal-girl danced together throughout the 

 whole of the night, but when day began to break every 

 seal went in search of its skin. The seal-girl alone was 

 unsuccessful in the search, but she tracked it by its smell 



