DELATING TO FUR-SEALS AND SEALSKIN INDUSTRY. 



39il 



quest of food, that she travels great distances in search of it. and thai 

 she returns to the islands heavily laden with milk. 



While hunting in the Gondii's boats many seals were fired upon when 

 asleep. They usually sleep with their head to leeward 



i-i .,•'■. * .i ft. • i j. • t t a. -j.i I Viatic- scalni". 



and keep it moving uneasily trom side to side, but with 

 the nose held clear of the water. A sleeping seal has his vital parts 

 pretty well submerged — the nose, lower jaw, and flippers being usually 

 held above the surface, although a little more appears at times accordi- 

 ng to the condition of the sea and the movements of the animal. 





One has to be very close to get a shot at the head that will kill it. 

 Many times the animal is wounded sufficiently to get _ . 

 out of reach of the hunter before it dies. I had very 

 little difficulty in approaching sleeping seals close enough for a fair 

 shot, but much in killing them. Fair shots that scattered the charge 

 all about them, hitting the flippers, I firmly believe, and in some eases 

 drawing plenty of blood, were usually without result, until I learned to 

 fire directly at the head. Then the shots began to prove fatal, but even 

 then, unless hit in a vital part the animals got away, though bleeding 

 freely. At first I blamed the ineffectual firing on the cartridges, but 

 the cartridges proved all right as soon as I learned to aim at the head 

 and not at the animal as a whole. 



I learned after some experiment that seals which dashed away ap- 

 parently uninjured were usually hurt, and after following them persist- 

 ently, at great labor to the boat-pullers, found that they were bleeding. 



I believe that the majority of sleeping seals fired at are struck. The 

 number killed at the Islands with buckshot in them 

 bears out this claim to a considerable extent 

 see how an ordinary marksman can shoot at so large a 

 target as a seal at short range with a double-barrel gun loaded with 21 

 buckshot without striking some of the exposed portions of the animal. 



It is from the instantly killed, that seals are secured; the wounded 

 animal uses its death struggle to get out of reach. What proportion 



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