312 UTILITARIAN ZOOLOGY 



hunted down that the walrus industry is a declining one. Rifle, 

 lance, and harpoon are all employed in its destruction. The 

 economic products are skin, fat, and ivory. The skin is very 

 thick and tough, but tanning reduces its value. It is employed 

 for some of the coarser purposes to which leather is put, and 

 in former times was largely used in North Europe for making 

 ropes and cables, to which end strips of it were plaited together. 

 The fat or blubber, though of good quality, is yielded in relatively 

 small quantities. The ivory making up the large tusks is inferior 

 to that of the elephant. 



Seals (Phocid^). — These are often confounded with the Fur- 

 Seals (Otaridae) and their allies, from which, however, they are 

 distinguished by their more complete adaptation to an aquatic 

 life, as seen more particularly in the complete absence of an 

 external ear, and the backwardly-directed hind-flippers, which 

 are bound together by a fold of skin (see vol. iii, p. 78). 



Seals are hunted for the sake of their blubber, which makes 

 excellent oil for lighting and lubricating purposes; and also on 

 account of the value of their skins, which are dressed as one of 

 the coarser furs ; while they yield leather that, especially when 

 enamelled, finds increasing favour. The animals are killed by 

 clubs, harpoons, or rifles, according to circumstances. By far the 

 most important species for the sealing industry is the Harp or 

 Greenland Seal [P/ioca Grcenlandica, fig. 1225), the former name 

 of which has reference to the presence of a curved black mark 

 on the back of the male. Next to this species in importance, 

 and like it native to the Arctic Ocean, is the curious Hooded or 

 Bladder-Nosed Seal [Cystophora cristata), so named from a dilat- 

 able swellincr on the nose of the male. The most noted sealingr 

 centres are the coasts of, and the parts of the sea adjacent to 

 West Greenland, Newfoundland, Jan Mayen Island, and North 

 Russia (including the White Sea and the vicinity of Nova 

 Zembla). From the British stand -point it is most interesting 

 to notice that sealing is one of the chief industries of Newfound- 

 land, its products in 1902 reaching the value of ^166,747. The 

 young are born on ice-floes, the " whelping ice ", off the coast of 

 Labrador, during January and February, and do not take to the 

 water for about three months. The cold Labrador current, which 

 sets southward along the American coast, brings the "whelping 

 ice" to the latitude of Newfoundland by about mid- March, 



