A voyage to Spitzbergen / containing an account of that country, of the zoology of the North; of the Shetland Islands; and of the whale fishery

by John Laing

These three quadrupeds constitute the entire of that great division of animals which belong to Spitzbergen. In warmer climes, the species are more numerous; but the individual animals do not there seem to possess more vigour or animation than these are imbued with. The climate of Spitzbergen being an extreme of cold, the animals of a more genial country cannot exist there. These species are indigenous to the regions of frost; cold is their element, and in it alone they thrive.

The amphibious animals come next in order; and as the accounts of them, given by different voyagers and naturalists are extremely confused, I have been more circumstantial than would otherwise have been necessary.

The Phocæ[15] are the most numerous class of animals which frequent Spitzbergen, where they are found in vast numbers. Though the specific characters of each particular tribe are distinctly marked, their general resemblance is, upon the whole, so very striking, that the following observations may be applied to them all indiscriminately. In the scale of nature, the Phocæ hold an intermediate station between amphibia and perfect fish; but nearer the latter than the former. The organization of other amphibious animals, such as the beaver, castor, otter, &c. fits them better for living on the land than the water. In this genus the contrary takes place. The arms and legs of the Phocæ, (if we may employ these terms,) are wholly enveloped in the flesh of the animal, the hands and feet being alone protruded; these too are webbed, and are instruments evidently more calculated for swimming than moving on land.

This unaptness of organization is strongly displayed in the painful motion of the animal, which, from the shortness of its legs, has to rest at every step on its belly, until it prepares for a new advance. Its agility, considering these defects, is indeed astonishing, and is certainly the effect of great exertion.

The eloquent and ingenious Buffon was of opinion that the Phocæ approached to fish by a still more decisive criterion. “They are the only animals,” says he, “which have the foramen ovale open, and which can therefore live without respiring, and to whom water is as proper and suitable an element as air.” Theoretic views appear to have here led this excellent writer into an error, as it is now well known that the Phocæ cannot remain long in the water without coming to the surface to breathe.

The Phoca vitulina, by the English termed seal, and by the French, phoque, is the most common species of those animals in the north, and is dispersed with some variety throughout the rest of the ocean. Its head is large and flat; the teeth strong, and so sharp that I have seen it bite in two the handspikes with which the men were attempting to kill it; the tongue is forked; and it is well furnished with whiskers around the mouth; has almost no external appearance of ears, but merely an aperture to convey the sound to the sensorium; the eyes are small, and have a haggard appearance; the neck thickens as it approaches the shoulder, the thickest part of the animal; from whence the body gradually tapers in a cylindrical form, to the extremity, where the hind legs are placed, between which is a very short tail; the fore paws consist of five fingers, joined together by a membrane, and furnished with very strong cylindrical nails; the hind paws are formed in the same way, except that the fingers are longer than in the fore paws, and that the shortest of them are in the middle, and the longest on the outside of the paw. The length of an ordinary full grown seal is about seven or eight feet; and its thickness at the shoulder four or five. It is covered with short coarse thick hair, which varies in its colour with the different ages of the animal.

The flesh of the seal is of a reddish colour, and is, by the Greenlanders, accounted 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 covers to trunks, vests, &c. and are now used to a very considerable extent in the manufacture of shoes. The Greenlanders, 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 polygamous 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 small fish, but chiefly on the spawn of the salmon.

Fabricius differs from both Buffon and Pennant in asserting, that the seal brings forth but one at a time, while they maintain that it brings forth two.[16] At the time of parturition, it comes on shore, and suckles its young there for about six weeks before it takes them to the water, where it instructs them in swimming. Though naturally timid, the female defends her young with great boldness and spirit; on other occasions they generally place their safety in flight; but I have sometimes seen them throw back stones and pieces of ice on the sailors who pursued them.

Seals delight to lie upon the ice, or on the shore, exposed to the sun[17]; they there sleep very profoundly, and fall an easy prey to the sailors, who dispatch them by a blow on the nose.