ANIMALS. 395 



mullet has been seen trying every art of evasion ; and at last 

 swimming into shallow water, in hopes of escaping. There, 

 however, the seal followed ; so that the little animal had no 

 other way left to escape, but to throw itself on one side, liy 

 which means it darted into shoalcr water than it could have 

 swam in with the belly undermost ; and thus at last it got free. 



As they are thus the tyrants of the element in which they 

 chiefly reside, so they are not very fearful even upon land, ex- 

 cept on those shores which are thickly inhabited, and from 

 whence they have been frequently pursued. Along the desert 

 coasts, where they are seldom interrupted by man, they seem to 

 be very bold and courageous ; if attacked with stones, like dogs, 

 they bite such as are thrown against them ; if encountered more 

 closely, they make a desperate resistance, and, while they have 

 any life, attempt to annoy their enemy. Some have been known, 

 even while they were skimung, to turn round and seize their but- 

 chers ; but they are generally despatched by a stunning blow on 

 the nose. They usually sleep soundly when not frequently dis- 

 turbed ; and that is the time when the hunters surprise them. 

 The Europeans who go into the Greenland seas upon the whale 

 fishery, surround them with nets, and knock them on the head ; 

 but the Greenlanders, who are unprovided with so expensive an 

 apparatus, destroy them in a different manner. One of these 

 little men paddles away in his boat, and when he sees a seal 

 asleep on the side of a rock, darts his lance, and that with such 

 unerring aim, that it never fails to bury its point in the animal's 

 side. The seal, feeling itself wounded, instantly plunges from 

 the top of the rock, lance and all, into the sea, and dives to the 

 bottom ; but the lance has a bladder tied to one end, which keeps 

 buoyant, and resists the animal's descent ; so that every time the 

 seal rises to the top of the water the Greenlander strikes it with 

 his oar, until he at last despatches it. But, in our climate, the 

 seals are much more wary, and seldom suffer the hunters to come 

 near them. They are often seen upon the rocks of the Cornish 

 coast, basking in the sun, or upon the inaccessible cliffs left dry 

 by the tide. There they continue, extremely watchful, and never 

 sleep long without moving; seldom longer than a minute-, for 

 then they raise their heads, and if they see no danger, they lie 

 down again, raising and reclining their heads alternately, at in- 

 tervals of about a minute each. The only method, therefore, 



