XVIII. 



SEALS AND SEAL-HUNTING IN THE NORTH ATLANTIC. 



HALF a dozen years ago I knew a blue -eyed, brown - haired, and 

 peach-cheeked little girl, whom her father used to call his " harbor- 

 seal." If yon had ever seen her lying face down in the cradle — her fa- 

 vorite position — holding up a round, fuzzy little head, you would have 

 understood at once why he called her so; for that is precisely the way 

 a seal looks when it is resting on a rock or a piece of ice. 



Scores of years back, before the settlement of North America by Eu- 

 ropeans, seals were wont to come to its shores even as far southward as 

 the Carolinas, and were common visitors from New Jersey northward. 

 Eobin's Reef, in New York Bay, passed by all the Coney Island steam- 

 boats, gets its name from the Dutch word robin or robyn — "seal" — be- 

 cause those animals used to resort there in great numbers. To-day they 

 are uncommon even along the coast of Maine, scarcely abundant in the 

 Gulf of St. Lawrence, and are slowly being driven inside the arctic circle. 



Now this disappearance of the seals from our own coast has been 

 brought about by incessant persecution, and it seems to me vevy unfort- 

 unate. How much it would add to the pleasure of a voyage down the 

 bay, or a ramble along the weedy and wave-polished beach, if we could 

 see, here and there, trim, brown animals creep up from the water on some 

 projecting rock, shaking the drops of water from their coats, and gaz- 

 ing at us with no fear in their mild eyes! But sadly for our amuse- 

 ment, and for the seals themselves, their bodies have a value in the 

 market — and great fleets every year are fitted out to engage in this 

 fishery. 



The word "fishery" ought to imply a "fish" to be caught; but the 

 term has become perverted : for instance, we speak of whale, sponge, 

 coral, crab, and oyster, or clam fisheries, yet none of these animals is in 

 the least a fish. Neither is the seal, although it lives in the water, swims 

 and dives. It is, indeed, nothing but a warm-blooded, fur-coated mam- 

 mal, with all the internal organs and outside structure of a quadruped. 



