THE OCEAN MAMMALS 371 
they are easily decoyed in the manner above described. 
Once, however, the biter got bitten. For oneof our Eskimo, 
who had hidden himself in a sealskin bag and was lying on 
a favourite basking rock flapping his legs, was mistaken for 
a seal by a passer-by on the shore, who promptly sent a 
bullet through him. 
The large, gentle eye makes the seal’s appearance ex- 
ceedingly attractive, and those inclined to be sentimental 
have found in him a great scope for their effusions. As 
a matter of fact, he eats his prey alive. He will take a bit 
out of a fish, and leave the rest to struggle away and die 
slowly. They are fierce fighters, and will catch and eat 
birds swimming on the surface of the water. One was seen 
devouring a salmon alive. The seal swallowed him by 
inches, swimming a mile while the struggle lasted. It 
seemed an open question whether he would succeed or not. 
Another seal was seen to capture a gull on the water, but 
the persistent harrying he got from the rest of the birds 
persuaded him to let the wounded victim go. 
The ringed seal, Phoca hispida, so dearly loved of Green- 
landers, and so prized by their people for clothing, is rare 
in Labrador, only a few specimens being taken, and those 
in the extreme north. 
Nor does the hooded (or hood) seal (Cystophora cristata) 
come much to the shore. Indeed, the ringed seal is a 
glacial seal, and the hood a pelagic and glacial seal. The 
hoods breed in the ice off our shores in March, a little later 
than the harps, and their baby, dark on the back, is called 
a “blue-coat.”’ The old ones are slightly larger than the 
harps, and the skin is covered with black patches. The 
strange bag on the head, which is inflated from the nose, 
