sometimes firing off guns. The frightened seals, trying to 

 escape, dive down and run their heads into the meshes of 

 the net, which are kept always open by means of roping 

 round the borders of the net, hove taut and set up by 

 capstans. As soon as the seals are caught in the meshes 

 the men underrun the nets, knock on the heads the seals 

 that are not strangled, and carry them on shore in their 

 canoes. 



The autumn fishing on the Labrador Coast takes place 

 at the end of November and in the month of December, 

 and is very arduous, by reason of the severity of the 

 weather and of the ice fields, which often break through 

 and destroy the nets, if care is not taken to haul them up 

 in time. The seals at this season, on being taken out of 

 the water, become frozen, and in that state they are stored, 

 and it is not before the spring, when the warm air has 

 softened them, that they are cut up and the fat melted. 



The spring fishing is carried on with nets in nearly 

 the same manner, with this difference, however, that the 

 entrance to the fishery is to the westward, because at that 

 season the seals are going out of the gulf. 



The spring and autumn fishings are carried on with 

 nets from Blanc Jubleris Bay to Cape Whittle. 



The seals are not only taken with nets, but they are also 

 pursued in every direction, and are sought for on ice-fields 

 in the Gulf of St. Lawrence and in the Atlantic, at a con- 

 siderable distance from Newfoundland and the Isle of Cape 

 Breton. 



The expeditions that are fitted for that kind of fishing, 

 or rather of hunting, require to start early in the spring. 



Sealing is carried on, on a very large scale, in Newfound- 

 land, and it is only, we may say, by the fishermen of 

 Magdalen Island that the hunting for seals in Canada is 



