156 OR JAN MAYEN SEAL. 



These seals, althougli existing in such enor- 

 mous numbers to the west, are not nearly 

 so numerous in Spitzbergen as the great, or 

 even as the much less abundant little seal. 

 They are gregarious, which neither of the other 

 varieties are, and generally go in bands of fifty 

 to five hundred together ; they are extremely 

 difficult to kill, as during the summer months 

 (at Spitzbergen at any rate) they never go upon 

 the ice ; they do not seem to be prompted by 

 the same laudable curiosity as the other seals, 

 and they go at such a rapid pace through the 

 water as to defy pursuit from a boat. When 

 they come up to breathe, these seals do not, 

 like the others, take a deliberate breath and 

 look round about them, but the whole troop 

 merely take a sort of simultaneous flying leap 

 through the air like a shoal of porpoises as 

 they go along, and they reappear again at an 

 incredible distance from their last breathing- 

 place, — whence the name of " springers " ap- 

 plied to them by the sealers. 



The Jan Mayen seal is 200 to 300 pounds 

 in weight, and is the fattest and most buoyant 

 of all the Arctic phocce. 



Lord David shot two of these seals on the 

 29th ; but we generally regard it as a bad omen 



