218 



CARNIVORA. 



On the coast of Newfoundland most of the Seals are 

 taken on shore with nets, women and children helping 

 to catch them. The season is looked forward to in 

 Newfoundland, as the harvest is in more temperate 

 regions, and the prospects are discussed in the same 

 manner. Bonavisto Bay is a celebrated fishing-ground. 

 The Newfoundland Sealing and Whaling Company, St. 

 John's, is one of the firms chiefly engaged in this 

 fishery. In Labrador the Seals are also taken on land 

 by means of nets. These are called Shore- taken skins ; 

 they are better flayed than those taken on the ice. 

 These Seals breed on the ice, and sleep there, plunging 

 in the water at the first sound of alarm. They feed in 

 the sea. The young Seals are despatched by the 

 seamen with clubs on the ice. The flaying is neces- 

 sarily hurried, but it is to be regretted that it is done so 

 clumsily, as some of the skins are injured. The sojourn 

 on the ice is so short and uncertain, and the low price 

 of the skins prevents special skilled hands being 

 employed in this work, as they are in the case of the 

 Fur Seals. An instance has been recorded of a Seal 

 which had been flayed, recovering from the effects of the 

 blow on the head, and escaping to the water, but such 

 instances are fortunately rare. It is extremely seldom 

 that a case of intentional cruelty occurs, and the state- 

 ment that Seals are flayed alive for the sake of adding 

 brilliancy to the hair is unfounded. 



The larger skins of the Greenland Seal are, as a rule, 

 imported in the wet or salted state, but a few arrive dry 

 from Labrador, and several hundreds by the Greenland 

 Company. The Saddlers fetch from 7s. 6d. to 9s. 8d. ; 

 the large spots 7s. 9d. to 10s. 8d. ; and the middling 

 spots 5s. to 6s. 3d. These are manufactured into 

 leather of fine quality, which is used for the bands of 



