The Zoologist — April, 1871. 2547 



sixty each in the course of the day, and by night the decks were 

 covered, in many places the full height of the rail. As the men 

 came on board they occasionally snatched a hasty moment to drink 

 a bowl of tea or eat a piece of biscuit and butter ; and as the sweat 

 was dripping from their faces, and their hands and bodies were 

 reeking with blood and fat, and they often spread Ihe butter with 

 their thumbs, and wiped their faces with the backs of their hands, 

 they took both the liquids and the solids mingled with the blood. 

 The deck of course, when the deck could be seen, was almost as 

 slippery with gore as if it had been ice. Still there was a bustle 

 and excitement in the scene that did not permit the fancy to dwell 

 on the disagreeables, and after a hearty refreshment the men would 

 snatch up their gaffs and hauling ropes, and hurry off in search of 

 new victims; besides, every pelt was worth a dollar!* During 

 this time hundreds of old seals were popping up their heads in the 

 small lakes of water and holes among the ice, anxiously looking for 

 their young. Occasionally one would hurry across a pan in search 

 of the snow-white darling she had left, and which she could not 

 recognise in the bloody and broken carcass, stripped of its warm 

 covering, that alone remained of it. 1 fired several times at these 

 old ones in the afternoon with my rifle from the deck, but without 

 success, as unless the ball hits them on the head, it is a great 

 chance whether it touch any vital part, the body being so thickly 

 clothed with fat. In the evening, however. Captain Furneaux 

 went out on the ice and killgxl two with his sealing-gun loaded with 

 seal shot. The wind had now sunk to a light air, and the sun set 

 most gloriously, glancing from the golden west across the bright 

 expanse of snow, now stained with many a bloody spot and the 

 ensanguined trail which marked the footsteps of the intruders on 

 the peacefulness of the scene. Several vessels came up near us 

 from the south, in the afternoon ; but notwithstanding all the 

 slaughter the air as night closed in resounded with the cries of the 

 young seals on every side of us. As the sunlight faded in the 

 west the quiet moon looked down from the zenith, and a brilliant 

 arch of aurora crossed the heavens nearly from east to west, in a 

 long waving line of glancing light, slowly moving backwards and 

 forwards from north to south across the face of the moon. The 

 evenings after a north-west wind are certainly most lovely, the 



* This, of course, refers only to young skins : the skins of adults being worth a 

 dollar and a half. — H. R, 



