K. BROWN ON THE SEALS OF GREENLAND. 



35 



III. — On the History and Geographical Relations o( 

 the PiNNiPEDiA frequenting the Spitzbergen and, 

 Greenland Seas. By Dr. Robert Brown, F.L.S. 

 F.R.G.S. 



[Reprinted by Permission from the Proc. Zool. Soc, 1868, No. 

 XXYII., pp. 405-440, with corrections and annotations by the 

 Author, March 1875.] 



Contents. 



1. Introduction, p. 35. 



2. Physiological Remarks on the 



Habits of Seals, p, 36. 



3. Habits and Instincts of Seals in 



general, p. 38. 



4. Notes on the Species of Pinni- 



pedia, p. 41. 



5. The Commercial Importance of 



the " Seal Fisheries," p. 67. 



1. Introduction. 



^In the introduction to the preceding paper I had occasion to 

 refer to the uncertainty which surrounds the history of many of 

 the Arctic Mammalia ; pre-eminently is this true of the Cetacea, 

 but scarcely less so of the order Pinnipedia. Though the specific 

 determination of the species in this group is more easily managed, 

 and has to a great extent been accomplished, yet the end to 

 which these determinations are made, — the history of the life 

 and geographical distribution and migrations of the animals 

 themselves, are yet almost unknown, or accepted on the autho- 

 rity of the old Greenland naturalists, many of whose observations, 

 made in a day when the specific characters were less known, and 

 but a limited portion of the Arctic Ocean explored, have been 

 proved to be far beside the truth. Again, these observations 

 were made on the coast of Greenland where none of our sealers 

 go, while in the Spitzbergen and Jan May en seas (the " Old 

 Greenland" or " Greenland Sea " of the whalers) the vast portion 

 of the sealing of commerce is carried on for a few weeks each 

 spring; but regarding the history of the Seals which form the 

 prey of these hunters, the extent, commercial importance of the 

 trade, and the migrations of these animals from one portion of the 



Arctic Sea to another we absolutely know nothing 



In the spring of 1861, with a view to acquire a knowledge of 

 the northern Seals of commerce, I accompanied a sealer into the 

 seas between Spitzbergen and Jan Mayen j that year, however, 

 proved a partial failure, and we returned to England by the end 

 of April, leaving immediately for Baffin's Bay. Dr. John Wallace 

 also made a similar voyage, and was fortunate enough to enjoy 

 better opportunities of observing the habits of Seals than I did, 

 for at the period when I left for Davis's Strait he remained behind, 

 and passed the whole summer in the sea between Spitzbergen, 

 Jan Mayen, and the east coast of Greenland. On my arrival in 

 England he put into my hands an excellent series of notes on 



c2 



