128 
THE LIVING WORLD. 
to lead the ignorant to believe it some odd species of humanity, or some 
supernatural being anthropomorphic in form, like the other gods of the heathen 
world. The Triton who gave his name to the family was, though the child of 
Neptune and Amphitrite, degraded to a fish-like form for some of the many 
misdeeds which the heathen deities 
were ever committing. His punish¬ 
ment was not simply personal, but 
was inflicted upon his offspring from 
generation to generation. The idea, 
of heredity includes evidently the 
notion of the persistence of evil, and 
is a new presentation of the doc¬ 
trine of original sin, and of the 
meting out to the individual a judg¬ 
ment extending beyond his own life, 
and affecting life and conditions of 
that of his successors. “As ye sow,, 
so shall ye reap,”—not solely your¬ 
self, but those innocent ones whose 
lives are dependent upon yours. 
The crested seal , hooded seal or 
Greenland seal , is the most neces¬ 
sary of creatures to the Esquimaux ; 
it serves as food, provides them with 
clothing, is used for the construction 
home of the seae. of boats, yields its air-reservoir as 
a buoy for floating the lance designed 
to destroy creatures of the sea, supplies the heads of their spears, and when 
needed for none of these purposes, serves as a pet or amuses the children by 
its antics. The Esquimaux hunt the seal in two ways. The first method is 
to take advantage of the seals known fondness for excavating a cavity in the 
ice, and having made 
therein a berth-like 
shelf, to pass there 
its times of restful¬ 
ness. These seal- 
caves are always indi¬ 
cated to the trained 
eye of the hunter by 
an incrustation of 
snow, and when a 
slight scratching in¬ 
dicates the appear¬ 
ance of the seal, the COMMON sea hound (Phoca vitulina ). 
hunter lying in wait 
impales it with his lance. The second method is to go out in parties, and by 
lying down on the ice and moving so as to resemble the locomotion of the 
seal , to approach close enough to cut off the seals retreat to the water. As 
the seal moves slowly and with difficulty except when in the water, it will 
