is pursued chiefly in April. The Seals congregate in numbers in winter in the neighbourhood of rapid rivers and hot springs, where the ice is broken, to which spots they resort, and bask or sleep in the sun. The hunters are quite familiar with these places, and put themselves into slight sledges, on which they hoist a white sail. The Seals, taking this for a floating island of ice, are not alarmed, and approach. They are thus surprised and shot, and many are captured."

While man is thus the greatest, and, we fear, often the cruelest, enemy of these Amphibia, it is not to be forgotten that he is not the only one. On land their chief foes, and especially of the Walrus, are the Polar Bears; and between these animals there are often dreadful contests; the Walrus being usually victorious, at the same time carrying away many fearful scars, the tokens of his triumph. In the ocean many of the more formidable species of Whales are ever making bloody and successful war against all kinds of Seals. The following curious information is given by Peron respecting the Great Sea-Elephant: "The fishers state that they sometimes see these Seals ascend from beneath the wave in the greatest apparent alarm, many of them covered with wounds, and dyeing the water with their blood. Their panic concurs with their wounds in proving that they have been hunted by some formidable foes. The fishers unanimously agree that they know no animal which

• Voyag. de Pallas, t. iv. 136,

could make such formidable wounds, and therefore presume that these monsters dwell far from the coasts; whilst they at the same time allow that they have not otherwise been able to detect any trace of them." Nearer home, they have similar enemies, and we are happy here to add a valuable note from Dr Trail's manuscript :-"In 1833, I inquired for my old acquaintances the Seals of the Holm of Papa Westray, and was informed that, about four years before, they had totally deserted the island, and had only within the last few months begun to reappear. The seeming cause of this migration was the attacks of some powerful ravenous inhabitant of the ocean. My friend informed me that in 1828 or 1829, he had found the bodies of more than a dozen of Seals completely divided through the middle, as if by a bite, drifted on shore. It was almost in every instance the portion next the tail that was found, and the appearance of these fragments showed that the body of the animal had been cleanly cut through, as if by the single stroke of the monstrous jaws of some species of shark." It has, moreover, been observed that these creatures are subject to very fatal epidemics. "About fifty years ago,

multitudes of their carcases were cast ashore in every bay in the north of Scotland, Orkney, and Shetland, and numbers were found at sea in a sickly state."

Without in the slightest degree depreciating the

• Fleming, Brit. An. p. 17.

products of these animals, which have become regular articles of commerce, and contribute to the elegancies and refinement of polished society, it is yet interesting to reflect that they are even still more essential to those hardy tribes of our fellow-men who spend their fleeting and chequered day within the limits of the Arctic Zone. To them they are indispensable, for the sea is their corn-field, and the Seal-fishery their most copious harvest. "Seals," says Crantz, "are more needful to them than sheep are to us, though they supply us with food and raiment, or than the cocoa-tree to the Indian, although it presents him with meat and clothing, houses, and ships; so that in case of necessity they could live upon them alone. The Seal's flesh supplies them with palatable and substantial food; the fat is sauce to their other aliment, and furnishes them with oil for light and fire, while at the same time it contributes to their wealth in every form, seeing that they barter it for all kinds of necessaries. They sew better with the fibres of Seal's sinews than with thread or silk; of the fine internal membranes they make their body raiment, and their windows; of the skins they make their buoys, so much used in fishing, and many domestic utensils, and, of the coarser kinds, their tents, and their boats of all sizes, in which they voyage and seek provisions; therefore," continues Crantz, "no man can pass for a right Greenlander who cannot catch Seals. This is the ultimate end they aspire at in all their device and labour from their childhood up. It is the only art,

and in truth it is a difficult and dangerous one, to which they are trained from their infancy, by which they maintain themselves, make themselves agreeable to others, and become beneficial members of society." Concerning the Southern hemisphere, a recent voyager tells us, that the inhabitants of Terra del Fuego are very expert at cutting the blubber from Seals, and not less so at stealing and eating it.

So much for the opinions entertained by the inhabitants of the Polar regions regarding the Seals as an article of food. A corresponding estimate is made of the herbivorous Cete all the world over. Wherever they are found, whether in the West Indies or the East, in Africa or America, they are considered as probably superior to any other kind of animal food. The prevalence and grounds of this opinion will be stated in a subsequent part of this volume,

No products of the Amphibia, however, are, upon the whole, more valuable than the oil and skins. The oil obtained both from the Walrus and Seals is of a quality superior to that of the Common Whale, and brings a higher price. It yields oil, says Scoresby, speaking of the Sea-Horse, which, when extracted before putrefaction has commenced, is beautifully transparent in its appearance, free from smell, and not unpleasant to the taste. Soon after Captain Cook's voyage, in the Resolution, in 1771, he presented an official report concerning New Georgia, in which he gave an account of the great

number of Proboscis Seals and Fur Seals which he had found on the shores of that island. This induced several enterprising merchants to fit out vessels to take them, the former for their oil, the latter for their skins. Captain Weddell states that he had been credibly informed, that during a period of about fifty years not less than 20,000 tons of oil were procured annually from this spot alone for the London market; a quantity which, at a moderate price, would yield about L.1,000,000 a year.

The skins, as we have seen, are very much used in their raw state as articles of apparel by the natives of the Polar Zones. When tanned, they use them extensively in making shoes; and the Esquimaux have a process by which they render them waterproof; so that, according to Scoresby, the jackets and trousers made of them by these people are in great request among the whale-fishers, for preserving them from oil and wet. But the skins are not only used in this raw and tanned state as leather; on account of their silky and downy covering, they constitute still more important articles connected with the fur trade. Thus considered, Seals' skins are evidently of two kinds, which may be distinguished as hair-skins and fur-skins. The former are used for clothing and ornament by the Russians, Chinese, and other nations, and the latter yield a fur which, we believe, exceeds in value all others which have been brought into the market. Many Seals supply nothing but hair, whilst others, in different proportions, produce both the hair, and un