THE RED DEER 
seal lies on the rock. If the seals are not ashore at low water it is best to 
leave the pursuit to another day. Where the sea breaks and makes a noise 
against cliffs it is not unusual to get more than one shot before the herd 
takes alarm, for I once killed three fine adult males on the island of Yell 
on the same rock before the others recognized the crack of the Mann- 
licher. The skins of the common seal make the most excellent cartridge 
bags as well as mats for the smoking-room, while the oil and fat is always 
appreciated by the local villagers, who use it for cattle medicine and 
harness dressing. 
In the case of the great grey seal the hunting is always dangerous and 
difficult. This seal lives in exposed situations, facing the great breakers 
of the Atlantic, and, as Mr Harvie Brown has remarked, after several un- 
successful efforts, the hunter is more likely to lose his life than to take that 
of the grey seal. Yet it involves a certain fascination under which I have 
myself fallen, for none of us care to be beaten, so we go on trying until 
success crowns our efforts. It was only after many failures that I saw 
how useless it was to kill this large animal in the water, for it invariably 
sinks within thirty seconds of being killed.* If the hunter could have an 
Esquimaux lying at hand with his kyak and spear ready to dash up and 
harpoon the beast as soon as shot everything would be all right, but 
clumsy Scottish boatmen handling heavy cobbles in a big sea is quite 
another matter. They have often just time to reach the seal and see it sink. 
So the animal must be shot when ashore on a rock and this is not easy. 
The chances in a season may be only rare, and even then, after the seal is 
shot, it may roll. I lost two fine males under such circumstances. Any 
sportsman who wishes to shoot a big male grey seal must be possessed of 
infinite patience and be ready to undertake long voyages in small boats 
in rough seas. I took the shooting of Balranald in North Uist for two seasons 
in the hope of achieving my desires, and the result was six males shot and 
lost, and one adult female and two immature males killed and recovered. 
Then came three unsuccessful attempts in the Orkneys and Shetlands, 
and finally I killed and recovered two big males and a female in North 
Rooe and Yell. One of these I got quite by a fluke, for I wounded it and it 
drifted far out in the Sound of Yell, where some haddock fishers found 
it floating and gaffed it with their halibut gaffs. I recovered the skin 
and skull several days later. 
* Since writing the above I am informed by the Rev. C. Wood, of White Bay, Newfoundland, who has shot 
several of these seals, that if killed in March, when they are very fat, the Square flipper, as it is called in the new 
world, generally floats as well as any other seal. 
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