114 THE HOME OF A NATURALIST. 



and the other six secured a seal each. They were all 

 shot in the water; and singular to say, every one 

 floated on the surface till we took hold of it. One of 

 them was a large fish, measuring six feet four inches 

 lonjr ; the others would run from three and a half to 



five feet in length I feel certain I could have 



shot as many more, if we could have taken them in 

 the boat ; but the boat was only ten and a half feet 

 keel, and I had four sturdy oatmeal-fed islanders with 

 me, so that you can fancy how much freeboard we had 

 when the six seals were in our little craft. The time 

 we were at the rock did not exceed forty minutes, and 

 I think that half the time was expended in getting the 

 largest seal into the boat. This was no easy matter, 

 and attended with very considerable risk ; but he was 

 quite a prize, and we did not like to let him go." 



Several things in this interesting and spirited account 

 are, so far as I am aware, unprecedented in the annals 

 of seal-hunting in this country. I have never heard 

 of any one in so short a time and out of a single herd 

 getting so many fair shots. When one gets amongst a 

 lot of seals, swimming and diving around the boat, one 

 shot is commonly all that you can hope for, and 

 whether you kill or not, it is almost invariably suffi- 

 cient to send the rest at once far beyond range. Then 

 out of eight shots, to strike and kill with six, consider- 

 ing the expertness of seals in " diving on the fire," is, 

 I believe, also unprecedented ; and to cap all, that not 

 one of the six should have sunk when shot, is extra- 

 ordinary and unaccountable; for, as I have already 



