1868.] MR. R. BROWN ON THE SEALS OF GREENLAND. 421 



they select ice of a strong consistence for the safety of their young 

 when in that helpless condition in which they are unable to take to 

 the water. Again, they often take the ice where it stretches out to sea 

 in the form of a long, broad promontory, with apparently this end in 

 view, that their young may easily get to sea when able to do so ; this 

 is the great clue which guides the sealer in the choice of the ice where 

 he may find his prey. This was very well exhibited in 1859. Dr. 

 Wallace tells me that there was very little ice that year, and the 

 island of Jan Mayen was altogether free from it ; indeed the nearest 

 ice lay away nearly 70 miles or more to the north-west of it. The 

 ' Victor,' the ' Intrepid,' and a fleet of other ships met with 

 indications of Seals in 72° N. lat., about eighty miles in a north- 

 westerly direction from Jan Mayen, in the early part of the month 

 of April ; they had sailed in an easterly direction through a very 

 loose pack of' very heavy ice. The prospects were so good that 

 ("apt. Martin, sen., of the 'Intrepid,' perhaps the most successful 

 sealer who ever sailed in the Greenland sea, and Capt. Anderson, of 

 the ' Victor ' (my old fellow voyageur both in the North Atlantic and 

 North Pacific Oceans), were congratulating each other on the almost 

 certain prospect of filling their ships (for, indeed, the old Seals 

 had taken the ice and some had already brought forth their young), 

 when suddenly there was a change of wind to the eastward, and 

 before many hours it blew a hard gale from that direction. The 

 results were that the ice was driven together into a firm pack and 

 frozen into solid floes, and the ' Victor ' and many of the best 

 ships of the fleet got ice-bound. The Seals shifted their position 

 towards the edge of the ice to be nearer the sea, and for seven weeks 

 the • Victor ' was beset among ice and drifted southwards as far as 

 N. lat, 67° 15', having described a course of nearly 400 miles. 

 Though I have stated the parallel of 72° N. lat. as being the 

 peculiar whereabouts of the Seals in March, yet they have often 

 been found at a considerable distance from it as well from Jan 

 Mayen. Thus in 1859 they were found in considerable numbers not 

 far from Iceland, the most northerly point of which is in N. lat. 

 66° 44' ; this leads me to remark that the Seals are often divided into 

 several bodies or flocks, and may be at a considerable distance from 

 each other, although it is most common to find these smaller flocks 

 on the skirts or at no great distance from the main body. After the 

 young have begun to take the water in the Spitzbergen sea, they gra- 

 dually direct their course to the outside streams, where they are often 

 taken in considerable numbers on warm sunny days. When able to 

 provide for themselves, the females gradually leave them and join the 

 males in the north, where they are hunted by the sealers in the 

 months of May and June; and it is especially during the latter 

 month that the females are seen to have joined the males ; for at the 

 "old-sealing" (as this is called) in May, it has often been remarked 

 that few or no males are seen in company with the females. Later 

 in the year, in July, there are seen, between the parallels of 76° and 

 71° N., these flocks of Seals, termed by Scoresby " Seals' weddings ;" 

 Proc. Zool. Soc— 1868, No. XXVIII. 



