A SAD PICTURE. 
147 
Boy Jack was a stripling of thirteen years, the son of 
a hardy seaman, who has determined to bring up the lad 
to his own calling from his earliest years ; having this 
object in view he was given over to the tender care of 
our cook. Nothing seems to escape the quick eye of 
the youngster, and in the late busy adventures he is 
everywhere, full of childish glee at the prospect of sport 
like this. “ Look,” shouts the lad, pointing to a little 
hecatomb of seals prostrate on the ice, “ there ! there is 
a pussy not dead yet, and he’s biting his mother! ” 
Sure enough, the young seal evidently is furtively 
biting at a dead one, and it is equally evident that the 
poor beast is endeavouring to rouse its parent to flee 
for her life, little heeding the weapons of the crew, in 
its almost human solicitude for its natural protector. 
It is of no avail; a bullet fired by the hand of some 
considerate sailor, takes the life it could of itself hardly 
sustain, now that it is deprived of the watchful care of 
its dam. 
Of all the curious and abnormal modes of progression 
on land, practised by animals, commend us to the seal. 
There are walkers, runners, leaping, bounding, hopping, 
skipping, creeping animals ; and these suggest to the 
anatomist the most dissimilar modes of progression. 
Some raise the body in erect or semi-erect postures ; 
others, by far the greater number, carry the body hori- 
