40 E. BROWN ON THE SEALS OF GREENLAND. 



Their parental love is so great that they will sometimes remaia 

 arcl share the fate of their hapless young. Their instinctive 

 knowledge of danger is very keen ; they have been known to 

 seize their young with their flippers and carry them into the 

 water with them when they savr the hunter approaching ! I did 

 not see this myself. 



Seals are very tenacious of life, and difficult to kill, unless by a 

 bullet through the brain or heart. They are so quickly Jlensed,^ 

 that after having been deprived of their skin they have been seen 

 to strike out in the water ; so that the sympathies of the rough 

 hunters have been so excited that they will pierce the heart 

 several times with their knives before throwing away the carcass. 

 These movements, however, are apparently reflex or diastaltic, as 

 I have often seen a Seal lying skinned on the deck for an hour, 

 exposed to a temperature of 12° below zero (Fahr.), and yet the 

 muscles of the loins and back retain their contractihty to such an 

 extent as to be able to rotate the pelvis on the spine, on those on 

 each side being alternately irritated. 



With the except ion of the Bladdernose, the other Seals in the 

 Greenland seas appear to have little or no combativeness in their 

 nature, but are a harmless, persecuted, sportive race of graceful 

 athletes making merry the solitary waters of polar lands. 



On the other hand, the male Bladdernose is, in truth, tbe lion of 

 the sea, dividing the empire of the polar waters vv'ith its huge ally 

 the Walrus. Instead of flying at the approach of the hunter, he 

 will quite calmly await the approach of danger, preparing for de- 

 fence by betaking himself to the centre of the piece of ice he is on, 

 and blowing up the air-bladder on his forehead, while he rears his 

 head and snufts the air like an enraged bull, and often gives battle 

 successfully, making the clubs fly from the hands of his assail- 

 ants with his flippers, his head being protected as with a helmet 

 by the air-bladder. He will then in turn act on the offensive, 

 and put his opponents to flight, pursuing them with a shuffling, 

 serpent-like motion over the ice, the result' often proving some- 

 what dangerous to the panic-stricken hunter if the boat has left 

 that piece of ice, as the Seal will use his tusks rather ferociously 

 when thus enraged. However, he is not inclined to give battle unless 

 provoked, and looks a dull stupid-looking sort of epicurean as he 

 lolls on the surface of the ice and gazes about with hi? large 

 black eyes, in an apparently meaningless stare. The " Ground- 

 Seal" and "the Floe-Rat" {Pagomys hispidus) in the far north 

 are quite harmless and inoffensive ; they apparently delight to swim 

 about in the calm smooth floe- waters, or bask asleep in the sun- 

 shine on the surface of the ice. Their greatest enemy is the 

 Polar Bear, who is continually on the alert to take them by 

 surprise, forming, as they do, his chief prey. 



Nearly all of the Seals live on the same description of food, 

 varying this at diff'erent times of the year and according to the 



* A convenient whaler's word (of Dutch origin) to express the operation 

 of taking off the blubber and skin. It is generally pronounced flinched by 

 the sealers and whalers. 



