THE LARGER NORTH AMERICAN MAMMALS 



435 



the basis for a great industry. Hundreds of 

 vessels were sent out from north European 

 and American ports and nearly 1,000,000 harp 

 seals were killed during each breeding season. 

 This tremendous slaughter and its attendant 

 waste has resulted in the disappearance of 

 these seals from many of their former haunts 

 and has alarmingly reduced their numbers 

 everywhere. Some are still killed off the coast 

 of Newfoundland, but the sealing industry, 

 now insignificant as compared with its former 

 estate, is practically dead. 



The hunting of harp and other seals on the 

 pack ice is an occupation calling for such 

 splendid qualities of virile hardihood in the 

 face of constant danger to life that its brutality 

 has been little considered. In this perilous 

 work great numbers of hunters have been cast 

 away and frozen miserably on the drifting ice 

 and many a sealing ship has been lost with all 

 hands. 



Off Newfoundland the young harp seal is 

 born early in March, wearing a woolly white 

 coat. At first it is tenderly cared for by its 

 mother, but before the end of April it has 

 learned to swim and is left to care for itself. 

 The young do not enter the water until they 

 are nearly two weeks old and require several 

 days of practice before they learn to swim 

 well. The adults are notable for their swift- 

 ness in the water. In the tremendous herds of 

 these seals the continual cries uttered by old 

 and young is said to produce a steady roar 

 which may be heard for several miles. Their 

 food is mainly fish. Man is their worst enemy, 

 but they are also preyed upon by sharks and 

 killer whales. 



RIBBON SEAL (Phoca fasciata) (see polar 

 bear group, page 438) 



The broad-banded markings of the male rib- 

 bon seal render it the handsomest and most 

 strongly characterized of the group of hair 

 seals to which it belongs. Its size is about that 

 of the harbor seal. Its range extends from 

 the Aleutian Islands, on the coast of Alaska, 

 and from the Kuriles, on the Asiatic shore of 

 the Pacific, north to Bering Straits. 



This seal is so scarce and its home is in 

 such remote and little-frequented waters that 

 its habits are almost unknown. Apparently it 

 is even less gregarious than the harbor seal 

 and usually occurs singly, although a few may 

 be seen together, where individuals chance to 

 meet. There are records of its capture at vari- 

 ous places along the Asiatic coast, especially 

 about Kamchatka and the shores of Okhotsk 

 Sea. In Alaska it is a scarce visitant to the 

 Aleutian Islands and appears to be most com- 

 mon on the coast south of the Yukon Delta 

 and from Cape Nome to Bering Straits. 



The few individuals taken by the Alaskan 

 Eskimos are captured while they are hunting 

 other seals on the pack ice in winter, and while 

 at sea in kyaks in spring and fall. Owing to 

 its attractive markings, the skin of the male 

 ribbon seal is greatly prized by the Eskimos, 



as it was formerly by the fur traders, for use 

 as clothes-bags. The skin is removed entire 

 and then tanned, the only opening left being a 

 long slit in the abdomen, which is provided 

 with eyelet holes and a lacing string, thus mak- 

 ing a convenient water-proof bag to use in 

 boat or dog-sledge trips. 



The scarcity of the ribbon seal and its soli- 

 tary habits will serve to safeguard it from the 

 destructive pursuit which endangers the exist- 

 ence of some of its relatives. 



POLAR BEAR (Thalarctos maritimus) 



Both summer and winter the great ice bear 

 of the frozen north is appropriately clothed in 

 white. It is also distinguished from all other 

 bears by its long neck, slender pointed head, 

 and the quantity of fur on the soles of its feet. 

 It is a circumpolar species, the limits of whose 

 range nearly everywhere coincide with the 

 southern border of the pack ice. The great 

 majority live permanently on the ice, often 

 hundreds of miles from the nearest land. 



During summer the polar bear rarely visits 

 shore, but in winter commonly extends its 

 wanderings to the Arctic islands and the bor- 

 dering mainland coasts. In winter it ranges 

 southward with the extension of the ice pack. 

 In spring, by an unexpectedly sudden retreat 

 of the ice, individual bears are often left south 

 of their usual summer haunts, sometimes being 

 found swimming in the open sea far off the 

 coast of Labrador. Occasionally some of those 

 which migrate southward with the ice through 

 Bering Straits fail to turn north early enough 

 and are stranded on islands in Bering Sea. 



That a carnivore requiring so much food as 

 the polar bear can maintain itself on the fro- 

 zen polar sea is one of the marvels of adapta- 

 tion to environment. The activity of these 

 bears through the long black night of the far 

 north is proved by records of Arctic ex- 

 plorers, whose caches have been destroyed and 

 ships visited by them during that season. In 

 this period of privation they range far over 

 land and ice in search of food, and when in 

 desperate need do not hesitate to attack men. 

 I have seen several Eskimos who had been 

 seriously injured in such encounters, and 

 learned of other instances along the Arctic 

 coast of Alaska in which hunters had been 

 killed on the sea ice in winter. During the 

 summer season of plenty, polar bears are mild 

 and inoffensive, so far as men are concerned. 

 At that time they wander over the pack ice, 

 swimming in open leads, and, when hungry, 

 killing a seal or young walrus. 



When spring opens, many polar bears are 

 near the Arctic coast. At that time the na- 

 tives along the northeast coast of Siberia kill 

 many of them on the ice with dogs and short- 

 hafted, long-bladed lances. The dogs bring 

 the bear to bay, and the hunter, watching his 

 opportunity, runs in and thrusts the lance 

 through its heart. 



During the cruise of the Corwin we saw 

 many of these bears on the broken ice off Her- 

 ald and Wrangel Islands. One large old male 



