EARLESS SEALS. , 33 



up to breathe. According to Dr. Robert Brown, the average time of a seal's 

 rabmergence is from five to eight minutes, while the limit is set down by the same 

 observer, at a quarter of an hour. Other authorities state, however, that the time 

 may be extended to as much as twenty or thirty minutes. The sounds uttered by 

 seals are various, in some cases taking the form of a kind of barking note, while in 

 others they assume a more bleating tone, or even resemble the cry of a child ; the 

 note of the young being always more plaintive and less hoarse than that of the adult 

 In no cases, however, do they utter barking roars comparable to those characteristic 

 of the eared seals. 



The strange circumstance that young seals take to the water reluctantly, and 

 have to be taught the art of swimming by their parents, would alone appear to be 

 a sufficient indication that seals are originally descended from land Carnivores. 

 Among some species the young remain entirely on the land or the ice for the first 

 two or three weeks of their existence, or until they have shed their first coat of 

 woolly hair. Numbers of seals are destroyed by the Polar bear, while others fall 

 victims to the rapacious killer-whale. Others again are frequently destroyed by 

 being jammed between ice-floes; and it is stated that thousands are sometimes 

 killed by this means. The reduction in their numbers by all these causes are, 

 however, trivial compared to those inflicted by man, who, according to Mr. J. A.' 

 Allen, requires about a million and a half to supply his annual needs. So reckless, 

 indeed, has been the destruction of seals, that some species are already well nigh 

 exterminated, while others have been so reduced in numbers as to render their 

 pursuit no longer profitable. 



Several species of seals inhabiting the Northern Hemisphere are in the habit of 

 making long migrations, moving southward to avoid the intense cold of winter, 

 and returning northward in summer; such migrations being most marked in the 

 Greenland and the hooded seal. These movements have been carefully observed 

 by Mr. J. C. Stevenson, on the Atlantic coasts of North America. The southern 

 migration commences soon after the frost sets in; and at this season, he writes, 

 "a fisherman, posted as sentinel on some headland commanding an extensive 

 sea-view, communicates to the hamlet the first indication of the approaching 

 host, the vanguard of which invariably consists of small detachments of from 

 half a dozen to a score of seals. Such parties continue to pass at intervals, gradu- 

 ally increasing in frequency and numbers during the first two or three days of 

 the exodus, by the end of which time they are seen in companies of one or more 

 hundreds. The main body is now at hand, and during the greater part of the next 

 two days one continuous uncountable crowd is constantly in sight. The whole 

 -secession coasts along at no great distance from the shore, presenting to an eye- 

 iii.ss a most extraordinary scene. In all quarters, as far as the eye can carry, 

 'thine- is visible but seals— the sea seems paved with their heads." 



From the conformation of their hind-limbs, the true seals are unable to progress 

 on land in the manner characteristic of the eared seals and the walrus ; both the 

 latter being able to bring their hind-limbs under the body by arching the back -and 

 carrying forward the hind-feet by a kind of jerk. Very generally the time seals 

 move on land merely by a kind of wriggling motion of the body, with the fore- 

 limbs held close to the sides of the trunk and the hind-limbs stretched out straight 



\vi 

 mi 



