376 
SEAL HUNTING. 
allied to sweeping ; brushing nervously, as if either to 
rub something from himself or from beneath him. 
Then comes a complete series of attitudes, stretching, 
collapsing, curling, wagging ; then a luxurious, bask- 
ing rest, with his face toward the sun and his tail to 
his hole. Presently he waddles off about two of his 
own awkward lengths from his retreat, and begins to 
roll over and over, pawing in the most ludicrous man- 
ner into the empty air, stretching and rubbing his 
glossy hide like a horse. He then recommences his 
vigil, basking in the sun with uneasy alertness for 
hours. At the slightest advance, up goes the prying 
head. . One searching glance ; and, wheeling on his 
tail as on a pivot, he is at his hole, and descends head 
foremost. 
" I have watched so many without success, that to- 
night I determined to try the Esquimaux plan — pa- 
tience and a snow-screen. This latter, the etisier por- 
tion of the formula, I have just returned from complet- 
ing ; it was a mile's walk and an hour's snow-shovel- 
ing. The other, the patience, I attempt to-morrow, 
' squat like a toad' on the ice for an unknown series 
of hours, with the sun blistering my nose, and blink- 
ing my eyes the while ; a sort of sport so much like 
fishing, that it ought to be reserved for the Piscators 
of our Schuylkill Club. 
" The walk over the snow to-night was very delight- 
ful. The opalescence, so painful to the eyes, had giv- 
en place to a clear atmosphere ; and the low sun was 
full of rich coloring. Land, too, that pleasing repre- 
sentative of the world we are cut off from, was refract- 
ed into grotesque knolls and long spires. 
" The surface of the floes shows more and more the 
thawing influence of our sun, now half as high at me- 
