62 NATURAL HISTORY OF ARCTIC AMERICA. 



often have severe battles on the ice-floes when they meet. They use the 

 fore flippers, instead of the teeth, in fighting. 



In Cumberland they begin working northward as fast as the floe 

 edge of the ice breaks up, arriving in the vicinity of Annanactook about 

 the latter days of June. In autumn they move southward as fast as 

 the ice makes across the sound, always keeping in open water. They 

 are seldom found in the smaller fjords or bays, but delight in wide ex- 

 panses of water. They dive to great depths after their food, which is 

 almost entirely Crustacea, mollusks, and even clams of considerable size. 

 This seal has a habit of turning a summersault when about to dive, 

 especially when fired at ; this peculiarity, which is not sha-red by any 

 other species that I have seen, is a characteristic by which it may be 

 distinguished at a considerable distance. During May and June they 

 crawl out upon an ice-floe, to bask and sleep ; at such times they are 

 easily approached by the Eskimo in their kyacks and killed. An adult 

 will often measure ten feet between the two extremes. The color is 

 variable ; the tawniness more or less clouded with lighter or darker mark- 

 ings irregularily dispersed. By July some of them become almost 

 naked. At this season their stomachs contained nothing but stones; 

 some of them nearly of a quarter pound weight. They seem to eat noth- 

 ing during the entire time of shedding, probably six weeks. Certain it 

 is they lose all their blubber, and by the middle of July have nothing 

 but " whitehorse," a tough, white, somewhat cartilaginous substance, in 

 place of blubber. At this season they sink when shot. Some specimens 

 were procured that had scarcely any teeth at all, and in many adults 

 the teeth can almost be plucked out with the fingers. The young are 

 born upon pieces of floating ice, without any covering of snow. The 

 season of procreation is during the fore part of May. After the young 

 have shed their first woolly coat (which they do in a few days), they 

 have a very beautiful steel-blue hair, but generally so clouded over with 

 irregularly dispersed patches of white that its beauty is spoiled. 



A fo3tus was procured near the Middliejuacktwack Islands April 28. 

 Its extreme length was four feet seven inches. 



Inches. 



Length of head 8/ 



Width of muzzle 4. 5 



Width of fore flipper 4.3 



Length of fore flipper to end of nails 7- 2 % 



Greatest expanse of hind flipper 13. 5 



Length of hind flipper 12 



From, end of nose to eye 3.2 



Distance between eyes 3. 50 



