366 LABRADOR 
south from Melville Sound and from even more northern 
waters during November to February; at this season the 
East Coast men set gill-nets for them. About the first 
of March they bring forth their young on the ice-floes off 
the coast, and also in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, as far as the 
Magdalene Islands, and even Nova Scotia. For this they 
herd together in tens of thousands on the floating ice, 
which under ordinary circumstances should afford them 
safety. But at this time when they are absolutely unable 
to escape, the Newfoundlanders hunt them in large steamers, 
and kill immense numbers of the babies by clubbing them. 
From two hundred and fifty thousand to five hundred 
thousand is the average number thus destroyed annually. 
The babies are quite white, called “white-coats,” and are 
almost all born on the same day, and also take to the water 
on the same day, three weeks later. The baby fur comes 
off at this time. He is then called a “‘ragged-coat.” The 
fur of still-born babes does not come off, and the skins are 
therefore more valuable and are called “cats.” 
During these (generally three) weeks, the ice has been 
drifting rapidly to the south. The mother seal has kept 
a blow-hole open up through the ice near where she left 
the baby, and through this she has been away fishing 
every day. She gives such rich milk that her offspring 
can be almost seen to grow. They are so fat that I have 
seen them looking, in their ice cradles, like bladders full of 
lard, as they lay on their backs in the hot sun, fanning 
themselves with their flippers. The mother at last forces 
the pup to take to the water, and a mysterious instinct at 
once teaches him to ‘‘go north, young man.” This he does 
in leisurely fashion, and by the end of May these “beating 
