i66 



their habits, and the prospects of their continuance in the 

 waters to which we have principally referred. 



The system of netting seals is not in use in Magellan, 

 they are either shot or clubbed by the sealers, the head 

 being the vulnerable part, the hunter strikes them with a 

 club just over the nose, and so despatches them ; this 

 method of killing them is preferred on account of its more 

 rapid effect. 



The dog seal is occasionally a dangerous enemy to meet, 

 and serious, sometimes fatal injuries have been inflicted by 

 it upon rash or unwary hunters. The affection of seals to 

 their young I have already referred to, and I have been 

 told by veteran hunters, that it has been frequently difficult 

 for them to restrain the emotions of pity evoked by the 

 piteous sorrow displayed by the dam for its cub, and the 

 pup seal -for its parent. Just prior to the period of mating, 

 the male and bachelor seals arrive at their quarters, and 

 await the arrival of the females ; when these latter do arrive 

 the seals busily employ themselves in pairing off with the 

 wives of their choice ; sometimes it happens that two males 

 fix upon the same female, and the result is a most sanguin- 

 ary encounter, the female invariably complacently accepting 

 the victor for whose success she has waited, without 

 evincing any emotion whatever. 



Captain Fanning, one of the noted sealing masters in 

 early times, distinguished the different ages and sexes of 

 the fur-seal as follows : Full aged males, called wigs ; the 

 females, clapmatches ; those not quite so old, bulls ; all 

 the half-grown of both sexes, yearlings ; the young of nearly 

 a year old, called grays, or silvered pups, and before their 

 coats are changed to this shade, called black pups. The 

 full-grown female, or clapmatche, averages fully one-half 

 the length of the largest males or wigs, and the colour of 



