SEALS.
There exists at present considerable confusion in the number of species and the classification of the northern seals. A scientific argument on classification is beyond the province of this report, and it need only be mentioned that, after careful inquiry from the Eskimos of Baffin island and Hudson bay, there is no doubt that, including the walrus, there are but six species of seals in the northern seas of eastern America, and that the other species named are simply due to varieties of age, size and colour.
The present account is confined to the distribution, habits and uses of these animals.
Callocephalus vitulinus, Linn.—The Harbour seal, Freshwater seal, or Ranger (Kassigiak, Eskimo), is common but not plentiful on all the coasts. It is found usually about the mouths of rivers, and in bays and fiords. It is also found in some of the larger lakes of Labrador and Baffin island. These lakes are often far inland and high above the present level of the sea, and there is no doubt that in a number of them the seals reside permanently. The young, unlike those of the other seals, are produced in July on the rocks about the banks of rivers.
The skins are prized by the natives owing to their fur-like character and beauty of colour. They are dressed with the hair on, and are chiefly used for women’s garments, fancy bags and for the boot-legs of dandies.
The flesh and blubber, especially of the older and larger freshwater seals, have a disagreeable odour and taste, and consequently are not so highly prized by the natives as are those of the following species.
Pagomys foetidus, Fab.—The Ringed seal, or Jar (Nietshik, Eskimo), is the common small seal of all the coasts.
The variations in size, markings and colour, due to age, have led to this seal being classed under several species.
Its flesh is the chief article of diet of the natives the year round, while its skin when dressed with the hair is used for clothing, tentings and bags; when dressed by removing the hair, it is used as covering for the kyak and for boot-legs. The blubber, burned in stone lamps, is the chief source of artificial heat.
The young are born in March in snow-houses scraped out by the female from a snow-bank, close to an air-hole on the ice. When born they have a glistening white coat of soft hair.