R. BROWN ON THE SEALS OF GREENLAND. 51 



Greenland sea, and Capt. Anderson, of the ^' Victor " (my old fellow 

 voyas^eur both in the North Atlantic and North Pacific Oceans), 

 were congratulating each other on the almost certain prospect of 

 filling their ships (for, indeed, the old Seals had taken the ice, 

 and some had already brought forth their young), when sud- 

 denly there was a change of wind to the eastward, and before 

 many hours it blew a hard gale from that direction. The results 

 were that the ice was driven together into a firm pack and frozen 

 into solid floes, and the "Victor " and many of the best ships of 

 the fleet got ic6-bound. The Seals shifted their position towards 

 the edge of the ice to be nearer the sea, and for seven weeks the 

 " Victor " was beset among ice and drifted southwards as far as 

 N. lat. 67° 15', having described a course of nearly 400 miles. 

 Though I have stated the parallel of 72° N. lat. as being the 

 peculiar whereabouts of the Seals in March, yet they have often 

 been found at a considerable distance from it, as well from Jan 

 Mayen. Thus in 1859 they were found in considerable numbers 

 not far from Iceland, the most northerly point of which is in N. 

 lat. Q6° 44' ; this leads me to remark that the Seals are often 

 divided into several bodies or flocks, and may be at a considerable 

 distance from each other, although it is most common to find 

 these smaller flocks on the skirts or at no great distance from the 

 main body. After the young have begun to take the water in the 

 Spitzbergen sea, they gradually direct their course to the outside 

 streams, where they are often taken in considerable numbers on 

 warm sunny days. When able to provide for themselves, the 

 females gradually leave them and join the males in the north, 

 where they are hunted by the sealers in the months of May and 

 June ; and it is especially during the latter month that the females 

 are seen to have joined the males ; for at the " old-sealing " (as 

 this is called) in May, it has often been remarked that few or no 

 males are seen in company with the females. Later in the year, 

 in July, there are seen, between the parallels of 76° and 77° N., 

 these flocks of Seals, termed by Scoresby " Seals' weddings" ; and 

 T have found that they were composed of the old males and 

 females and the bluebacks, which must have followed the old ones 

 in the north and formed a junction with them some time in June. 

 There is another opinion, that the old females remain and bring 

 their young with them north ; but all our facts are against such a 

 theory ( Wallace). 



These migrations may vary with the temperature of the season, 

 and are influenced by it ; it is possible that in the Spitzbergen 

 sea as the winter approaches they keep in advance of it and retreat 

 southward to the limit of perpetual ice, off the coast of Greenland, 

 somewhere near Iceland, where they spend the winter. We are, 

 however, at a loss regarding the winter habits of these Seals in 

 that region ; here no one winters, and there are no inhabitants to 

 note their migrations and ways of life. Different is it, however, 

 on the Greenland shores of Davis's Strait, where in the Danish 

 settlements the Seals form, both with the whites and Eskimo, the 

 staple article of food and commerce, and accordingly their habits 



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