104 
colour, and is, by the Greenlanders, ac¬ 
counted excellent food. Our sailors 
esteemed the entrails of a young one 
which they dressed, as equal to those of 
a hog. A seal will yield about twelve 
or fourteen gallons of good oil; their 
skins are very valuable, serving for co¬ 
vers to trunks, vests, &c. and are now 
ifsed to very considerable extent in the 
manufacture of shoes. The Green¬ 
landers, who depend almost entirely for 
subsistence on this animal, make their 
boots, and other articles of dress, as well 
as the inside of their huts, of its skin. 
■■ 
The seal is a gregarious and polyga¬ 
mous animal. It is never met with at a 
great distance from land, but frequents 
the bays and seas adjacent to the shore. 
It feeds promiscuously on most sorts of 
fish, but chiefly on the salmon carp. 
Fabricius differs from both Buffon 
and Pennant, in asserting, that the seal 
brings forth but one at a time, while 
