190 NURSERIES ON DRIFTING ICE. 



leaps to the edge of the field ; and they show an astonishing sagacity in 

 discerning the proper direction. It is supposed that they can smell the 

 water at a long distance. 



Sometimes great storms come, breaking the ice-floes in pieces and jam- 

 ming the fragments against one another, or upon rocky headlands, with 

 tremendous force. Besides the full-grown seals that perish in such gales, 

 thousands of the weak infants are crushed to death or drowned, notwith- 

 standing the dauntless courage of their mothers in trying to get their 

 young out of danger and upon the firm ice. And it is touching to watch 

 a mother seal struggling to get her baby to a safe place, " either by trying 

 to swim with it between her fore-flippers, or by driving it before her and 

 tossing it forward with her nose." The destruction caused by such gales 

 is far less when they happen after the youngsters have learned to swim. 



Does it surprise you that seals which are constantly in the water have to 

 learn to swim? Well, it might stagger tile phocidse to be told that men 

 have to be taught to walk. The fact is, a baby seal is afraid of the water ; 

 and if some accident or his mother's shoulder pushes him into the surf 

 when he is ten or a dozen days old, he screams with fright and scrambles 

 out as fast as he can. The next day he tries it again, but finds himself 

 very awkward and soon tired ; the third day he does better, and before 

 long he can dive and leap, turn somersaults (if he is a bearded seal), 

 and vanish under the ice, literally " like a blue streak," the instant danger 

 threatens. But he had to learn how, to begin with, like any other mammal. 



It is when the seals are busy in caring for their helpless babies, and 

 giving the better grown youngsters their early lessons, that the Eskimo 

 hunters seek most diligently to kill them. This is not merely for the 

 pleasure of it — not that at all, perhaps — but because their flesh and skins 

 are imperatively needed. Those chiefly pursued by Eskimos, however, 

 are not the species that make the great migrations I have just described, 

 but ringed seals (Phoca fmtida), whose habit it is to remain on the high 

 arctic coasts all the year round. Upon this animal the Eskimos place 

 almost their entire dependence for food, fuel, light, and clothing. Its 

 capture is therefore exceedingly important to every family. 



At the end of winter each of the female seals of this species creeps 

 up through the breathing-hole {atluk) ; and under the deep snow over- 

 lying all the ice-field she digs a cave, eight or ten feet .long and three 

 to five feet wide. At one end of the excavation is the breathing-hole, 

 affording a ready means of retreat in case of danger. In this cave the 

 young seal is born, and though protected from the sight of its enemies, 

 here it is often captured. 



