394 HISTORY OF 



Thus early accustomed to subjection, they continue to live in 

 society, hunt and herd together, and have a variety of tones 

 hy which they encourage to pursue, or warn each other of 

 danger. Some compare their voices to the bleating of a flock of 

 sheep, interrupted now and then by the barking of angry dogs, 

 and sometimes the shriller notes of a cat. All along the shore, 

 each has its own peculiar rock, of which it takes possession, and 

 where it sleeps when fatigued with fishing, uninterrupted by any 

 of the rest. The only season when their social spirit seems to 

 forsake them, is that when they feel the influences of natural de- 

 sire. They then fight most desperately, and the male that is 

 victorious keeps all the females to himself. Their combats, on 

 these occasions, are managed with great obstinacy, and yet great 

 justice : two are never seen to fall upon one together ; but each 

 has its antagonist, and all fight an equal battle, till one alone be- 

 comes victorious. 



We are not certainly informed how long the females contirme 

 pregnant ; but if we may judge from the time which intervenes 

 between their departure from the Greenland coasts and their re- 

 turn, they cannot go above seven or eight months at the farthest. 

 How long this animal lives is also unknown : a gentleman, 

 whom I knew in Ireland, kept two of them, which he had taken 

 very young, in his house for ten years ; and they appeared to have 

 the marks of age at the time I saw them, for they were grown 

 gray about the muzzle ; and it is very probable they did not live 

 many years longer. In their natural state the old ones are seen 

 very fat and torpid, separated from the rest, and, as it should 

 seem, incapable of procreation. 



As their chief food is fish, so they are very expert at pursuing 

 and catching it. In those places where the herrings are seen in 

 shoals, the seals frequent and destroy them by thousands. When 

 the herring retires, the seal is then obliged to hunt after fish that 

 iire stronger and more capable of evading the pursuit : however, 

 they are very swift in deep waters, dive with great rapidity, and, 

 while the spectator eyes the spot at which they disappear, they 

 are seen to emerge at above a hundred yards distance. The 

 weaker fishes, therefore, have no other means to escape their 

 tyraimy, but by darting into the shallows. The seal has bcc" 

 seen to pursue a mullet, which is a swift swimmer, and to tura 

 it to and fro in deep water, as a hound does a hare on land. The 



