24 THE FUR SEAL 



it clear whether it would be possible to shorten the 

 journey, which is thus described by Professor H. W. 

 Elliot : 



' As the drove progresses along that path to the slaughter- 

 ing grounds, the seals all go ahead with a kind of walking 

 step, and with a succession of starts, spasmodic and irregular, 

 made every few minutes, often pausing to catch their breath, 

 and making, as it were, a plaintive survey and mute protest. 

 Every now and then a seal will get weak in the lumbar 

 region, then drag its posteriors along for a short distance, 

 finally drop breathless and exhausted, quivering and panting, 

 not to revive for hours days, perhaps often never.' 



At the end of this danse macabre the doomed 

 creatures are made to pass between two men, who fell 

 them with a blow on the nose with a heavy club. 



It is an ugly business at best, enough to turn the 

 gorge of one not hardened to it : yet, after all, probably 

 the suffering of the victims is not actually greater than 

 what they would inflict upon each other in mortal 

 combat if left to fight it out among themselves. But 

 if the American land-sealing be considered amenable 

 to more merciful methods, what shall be said of the 

 pelagic sealing as carried on in the Behring Sea, where 

 the British enjoy a monopoly secured by treaty ? The 

 proceedings there seem to stand far more in need of 

 reform than those on the islands. 



The female seals seek the open sea to recruit and 

 feed after their agitating courtship and the exhaustion 

 consequent upon reproduction, nursing, and a fast of 

 several months. They leave their young on the islands 

 or on the ice, and set to work feeding ravenously on 



