362 LABRADOR 
more clearly recognizes this or more deeply deplores it 
than one of the best authorities, Dr. Fridjof Nansen. The 
hood-seal fishery of East Greenland, once a great in- 
dustry, has long ago ceased to exist. It began in 1761, 
and by 1884 it was already failing, yet only one million 
seals had been killed. Every year the white communities 
in Labrador are finding it less worth while to prosecute the 
seal-fishery. And now the land being also denuded of its 
once plentiful game, many settlements have disappeared. 
In 1795 it was considered a poor seal year when eleven hun- 
dred were killed at Battle Harbour; one hundred and fifty 
seals would be a good year’s catch-there now. Professor 
Hornaday of New York declares that “every large terres- 
trial mammal species is being killed off faster than it 
breeds.”” The same may be said of most of the aquatic 
mammals. 
I am safe in saying that along the whole coast of Labrador 
not more than fifty walrus are now killed in the year. One 
was killed near Cape Mekattina in the Gulf, last year (1908). 
I have not heard of any other having been seen in the Gulf 
during the sixteen years I have known it. Most are killed 
by the Eskimo at Okkak, Hebron, and Ramah. They are 
more numerous around Cape Chidley, but there are fewer 
people there to kill them. Great herds were said to have 
once existed on the Magdalene Islands. In 1641 a vessel 
hunting as far south as Sable Island secured as many as 
four hundred pair of walrus tusks. In 1750 they were very 
plentiful in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Yet in 1841 so rare 
had they become, one was reported killed ‘‘as far south 
as the Gulf of St. Lawrence.”’ It may be noted that the 
walrus are not migratory in habit. Even in the polar 
