274 OUR ARCTIC PROVINCE. 



tinue to do so until the end of the season, in August, yet that fight- 

 ing which takes place at this date is the bloodiest and most vindic- 

 tive known to the seal. I presume that the heaviest percentage of 

 mutilation and death among the old males from these brawls, occur 

 in this week of the earliest appearance of the females. 



A strong contrast now between the males and females looms up, 

 both in size and shape, which is heightened by an air of exceeding 

 peace and dove-like amiability which the latter class exhibit, in con- 

 tradistinction to the ferocity and saturnine behavior of the former.* 

 The cows are from four to four and a half feet in length from head 

 to tail, and much more shapely in their proportions than the bulls; 

 there is no wrapping around their necks and shoulders of unsightly 

 masses of blubber ; their lithe, elastic forms, from the first to the 

 last of the season, are never altered ; they are, however, enabled to 

 keep such shape, because, in the provision of seal economy, they 

 sustain no protracted fasting period ; for, soon after the birth of 

 their young they leave it on the ground and go to the sea for food, 

 returning perhaps to-morrow, may be later, or even not for several 

 days in fact, to again suckle and nourish it ; having in the mean- 

 time sped far off to distant fishing banks, and satiated a hunger 

 which so active and highly organized an animal must experience, 

 when deprived of sustenance for any length of time. 



As the females come up wet and dripping from the water, they 

 are at first a dull, dirty-gray color, dark on the back and upper 

 parts, but in a few hours the transformation in their appearance 

 made by drying is wonderful. You would hardly believe that they 

 could be the same animals, for they now fairly glisten with a rich 

 steel and maltese gray lustre on the back of the head, the neck, and 



* The old males, when grouped together by themselves, indulge in no 

 humor or frolicsome festivities whatsoever. On the contrary, they treat each 

 other with surly indifference. The mature females, however, do not appear 

 to lose their good nature to anything like so marked a degree as do their lords 

 and masters, for they will at all seasons of their presence on the islands be ob- 

 served, now and then, to suddenly unbend from severe matronly gravity by 

 coyly and amiably tickling and gently teasing one another, as they rest in the 

 harems, or later, when strolling in September. There is no sign given, how- 

 ever, by these seal-mothers of a desire or attempt to fondle or caress their 

 pups ; nor do the young appear to sport with any others than the pups them- 

 selves, when together. Sometimes a yearling and a five or six months old pup 

 will have a long-continued game between themselves. They are decidedly 

 clannish in this respect creatures of caste, like Hindoos. 



