HUNTING OF SEALS. 43 



creates considerable deviation. On the whole, it is nice shoot- 

 ing. The head only of the seal is above water, and the 

 mortal point to be struck is the brain, which in an adult 

 common seal is hardly c 2\ inches in diameter. This at sixty 

 or eighty yards is little more than a point, for we do not pre- 

 tend to be able like our worthy far-sighted brother Jonathan 

 to see and hit the head of a nail in a target at 150 yards. 

 Yet I know of eleven seals struck in succession with single 

 ball in one day at fair distances, and ten out of the eleven 

 boated. On another occasion five were struck by one shot, 

 the gun was charged with two balls, and about a dozen seals 

 were lying on a rock within thirty yards ; the one ball dipped 

 into the brain of one, passed through the spine of another, 

 and lodged in the body of the third : — these were all secured. 

 The other ball mortally wounded other two, but they 

 reached the water, and were lost. In both these cases my 

 brother, Thomas Edmonston, Esq. of Buness, was the 

 sportsman. He has been the most successful seal-hunter of 

 whom we have any account in this country. In the course 

 of little more than ten years he brought to boat 300 seals, 

 great and small, losing very few that were fired at : one of 

 those years I reckoned fifty. When killed in the water they 

 sometimes float for a long time, but more commonly sink in 

 a few seconds. This may proceed from various causes. The 

 specific gravity of an adult well-conditioned seal is nearly 

 that of salt water, in which, when floating, only a very 

 small portion of his back is to be seen. The " ocean pa- 

 triarchs" are for the most part rather meagre, and their 

 bones compact and heavy, and they usually have an " alac- 

 rity at sinking. 1 ' The females and adolescents of both sexes 

 for opposite reasons usually float ; sometimes they are shot 

 when the lungs are inflated, sometimes when collapsed, or 

 certain nerves controlling the glottis are injured ; at other 



