196 SUMMER LIFE AND SUBSISTENCE. 



Late in the summer, wben the young seals have grown able to take 

 care of themselves, and the herds are away enjoying the open sea and 

 getting fat on the abundant food they find at that season, the Eskimo 

 has to pursue them with great caution, crawling over the ice face down- 

 ward, and imitating their awkward, tumbling play until near enough to 

 hurl his spear; or he must get into his frail kayak and chase the herds 

 far up glacial fiords and away across the rough and chilling sea, where 

 they are living on the floating ice. 



The food of seals is various, but consists chiefly of fish, though the 

 young ones, when companies of them first begin to hunt in the shallow 

 water near shore, seem to like crabs better than anything else ;■ and to 

 several species of shrimps, abounding in northern seas, the observant 

 sailors have given the name "seals' food." Shell-fish of various sorts, 

 too, are cracked in their strong jaws and devoured, especially the arctic 

 mussels. They swallow many pebble-stones also, not for food, but, it is 

 supposed, in order to aid digestion. 



Now I must force myself to leave this hasty sketch of the natural 

 history of these most interesting and serviceable animals, regretting that 

 I cannot dwell longer upon many of its features, and turn to the exciting 

 incidents of the chase conducted against them every spring by ships and 

 crews from America and Europe, the details of which present a horrible 

 picture of blood and cruel warfare against one of the most innocent 

 and child-like creatures that ever breathed. 



The phocine seals of the Atlantic are not hunted for their fur, as are 

 their Alaskan cousins, but chiefly for their oil, and secondarily for their 

 skins. It is an industry which profitably employs hundreds of ships and 

 thousands of seamen, and it receives the name of "sealing." The prin- 

 cipal sealing-grounds are Newfoundland, Labrador, and the islands which 

 lie between, but especially the ice-floes off the coast of western Green- 

 land ; the Spitzbergen and Jan Mayen seas ; Nova Zembla, the White 

 and Caspian Seas. Of these districts the most important is Newfound- 

 land, where, as long ago as half a century, three hundred and seventy- 

 five vessels assembled annually, and, twenty-five years ago, five hundred 

 thousand seals were taken in a single season. These early fleets, which 

 were larger in point of numbers than any that go out now, consisted 

 wholly of sailing vessels, many of which were of small size, notwith- 

 standing the long and tempestuous voyages they had to endure. The 

 most of them hailed from Newfoundland. All these were concerned 

 in "ice-hunting," which is the most extensive and profitable, though 



