266 OUR ARCTIC PROVINCE. 



mostly all hauled up), I saw him still there, covered with scars and 

 frightfully gashed raw, festering, and bloody, one eye gouged out 

 but lording it bravely over his harem of fifteen or twenty females, 

 which were all huddled together around him on the same spot of his 

 first location. 



This fighting between the old and adult males (for none others 

 fight) is mostly, or rather entirely, done with the mouth. The op- 

 ponents seize one another with their teeth, and thus clinching their 

 jaws, nothing but the sheer strength of the one and the other tug- 

 ging to escape can shake them loose ; then, that effort invariably 

 leaves an ugly wound, for the sharp canines tear out deep gutters 

 in the skin and furrows in the blubber, or shred the flippers into 

 ribbon-strips. 



They usually approach each other with comically averted heads, 

 just as though they were ashamed of the rumpus which they are de- 

 termined to precipitate. When they get near enough to reach one 

 another, they enter upon the repetition of many feints or passes be- 

 fore either one or the other takes the initiative by gripping. The 

 heads are darted out and back as quick as a flash ; their hoarse 

 roaring and shrill, piping whistle never ceases, while their fat 

 bodies writhe and swell with exertion and rage ; furious lights 

 gleam in their eyes, their hair flies in the air, and their blood 

 streams down, all combined makes a picture so fierce and so 

 strange that, from its unexpected position and its novelty, it is 

 perhaps one of the most extraordinary brutal contests which a man 

 can witness. 



In these battles of the seals the parties are always distinct ; the 

 one is offensive, the other, defensive. If the latter proves the 

 weaker, he withdraws from the position occupied, and is never fol- 

 lowed by his conqueror, who complacently throws up one of his 

 hind flippers, fans himself, as it were, to cool his fevered wrath and 

 blood from the heat of the conflict, sinks into comparative quiet, 

 only uttering a peculiar chuckle of satisfaction or contempt, with a 

 sharp eye open for another covetous bull or " see-catch." * 



That period occupied by the males in taking and holding their 

 positions on a rookery offers a very favorable opportunity to 

 study them in the thousand and one different attitudes and postures 



u See-catch," is the native name for a bull on the rookeries, especially 

 one which is able to maintain its position. 



