Will long pursue the Minstrel’s bark,”
are in reality no poet’s licence, inasmuch as many instances are recorded of music—a flute, or even whistling, for example—bringing them to the surface. Their docility and intelligence are noted from the times of Pliny, and Professor Trail relates how one became a regular sociable kitchen pet. Of another, kept for six months in Shetland, the domesticity was quite marked. Called from a distance, even when in the sea, it would answer plaintively, swim ashore, and make its ungainly way over stones and grass to its lodge. This “Sealchie” amusing herself in the sea one day, a sudden snowstorm came on, during which some wild Seals approached and coaxed her off. A great number of interesting stories are related of the Common Seal, which Phoque lore, however, I need not stay to consider.
THE RINGED SEAL.[220]—This animal has considerable likeness to the last, excepting the fact that it is a very much smaller animal, seldom reaching more than three or four feet in length. It is blackish-grey above, the spotting being marked with oval whitish rings. Below, it is paler in colour, and its hair is softer and usually rougher than the Common Seal’s. Besides these external features, the formation of the cheek and palate bones, and the straight line of the molar, distinguish it from Ph. vitulina. In addition to the above name, it is also called Fœtid and Fjord Seal. It is the “Neitsik” of the Greenlanders; “Floe Rat” of the sealers; and is known as “bodack,” or “old man,” in the Hebrides. Other popular names are given it in different countries. The callous Eskimo are not insensible to the disgusting odour exhaled from the old males, and hence the name Fœtida. Dr. Rink says that when the large fellows captured in the interior ice-fjords are brought into a hut, and cut up on its floor, a smell is emitted resembling something between that of assafœtida and onions. The flesh of the young, notwithstanding, both he and Dr. R. Brown aver, is sufficiently palatable to an educated taste; and the latter even states that after a time he and his companions became “quite epicurean connoisseurs in all the qualities, titbits, and dishes of the well-beloved Neitsik. The skin,” he goes on to say, “forms the chief material of clothing in North Greenland. All of the οἱ πολλοί dress in Neitsik breeches and jumpers; and we sojourners from a far country soon encased ourselves in the somewhat hispid, but most comfortable, Neitsik nether garments. It is only high dignitaries like ‘Herr Inspektor’ that can afford such extravagance as a Kassigiak (Ph. vitulina) wardrobe! The Arctic pelles monopolise them all.” The young are of white, though slightly yellowish tint, and the hair is curly. A favourite haunt of the Floe Rat is the great ice-fjord of Jakobshavn. They resort to the ice-floes in retired bays, seldom frequenting the open sea. Dr. Rink calculates that 51,000 are annually captured in Danish Greenland. On an average, he reckons their weight at about 84 lbs. each. He says this Seal, which is also termed “Utok,” is almost exclusively that captured by means of ice-nets. Two nets are used across the track of the Seals near shore, in certain sounds between 63° and 66° N. lat. One is lowered to the bottom, and over this the animals pass; the other intercepts them, and the former is hauled up, and they are then caught in immense numbers between the two, running their heads into the net-meshes. This ruinous slaughter has in many instances driven the “Utok” Seals from their favourite inlets. The Seals form oblique passages through the ice-crust only large enough to allow their getting up and down; and in the sunny days of May are fond of basking on the ice-heaps close by. Towards this hole, usually termed “atluk,” equally adapted for rising to breathe or diving again, the Eskimo hunter cautiously approaches, or, covering his face with his Sealskin jacket, imitates the actions and manners of a Seal, and creeps towards his prey. In other cases, with a wooden frame, covered by white cotton, he pushes this shooting-sail slowly before him towards the animal. When sufficiently near, he despatches the creature with his gun, though it is necessary to inflict a severe wound in the skull or neck vertebræ, else the Seal quickly rolls down the hole and is lost. At other times, a couple of hunters will keep watch at the margin of an “atluk,” and, while one is on the outlook for the animal’s rising to breathe, the other plants his harpoon in the creature, the rope securing the victim. This method of hunting requires great patience, caution, and dexterity, for the acute sense of hearing keeps the animal always on the qui vive, and on perceiving the least mischievous stir it instantly escapes.
RINGED SEAL.
The geographical area of this species is round the southern coast of Greenland, Iceland, onwards to Spitzbergen, and high latitudes of the Arctic Ocean, towards Nova Zembla and the Russian coasts. It is also asserted that either this animal, or a closely-allied and barely-to-be-distinguished species is that which inhabits Lake Baikal, in North Central Asia, and Lake Ladoga, in Finland. On this head there is some discrepancy in the writings of authorities. M. Dybowski regards the Lake Baikal animal as distinct, and names it Phoca baicalensis. Nilsson again avers that the Seal of the Caspian Sea is a distinct species (Phoca caspica). On the other hand, Wallace and Van Beneden take a broader view, with which I am inclined to agree, that one, or more likely both, animals may be regarded as the Ringed Seal (Phoca hispida). It is very plausibly remarked that in former epochs of the world’s history, as is well known, geologists show that a large area of what is now called Russia in Asia was partially submerged, or, at least, the lakes in question were in more direct communication with the Arctic Ocean. The Seals hence, one might say, had their oceanic connection cut off, and thus, on that account slightly modified, remain as evidence of a once different physical condition of the areas concerned.
ESKIMO HUNTERS AT AN ATLUK, WAITING FOR A SEAL.
THE GREENLAND, OR SADDLE-BACK SEAL.[221]—It is this species that forms one of the chief objects of chase both in the Spitzbergen and Newfoundland seas. In habits it agrees with the ordinary Seals though said to be careless and stupid, and easily captured. It feeds on small fish, crustacea, and mollusca. The males and females differ in appearance, and the changes from the younger to older stages are also very remarkable. Indeed, one may say scarcely two animals are alike. These peculiarities have given rise to a great variety of names—White Coats, Harp Seal, Blue Sides, and other common appellations—besides “Atak” of the Greenlanders, and “Karoleek” and “Neitke” of the Eskimo, &c.
It has a wide geographical range, namely, along the North American coast to Davis Strait, round Greenland, the Scandinavian coasts, the Arctic Ocean eastward to Behring Strait, and even to Kamstchatka. According to Rink, though migratory, it may nevertheless be considered at home on the Greenland coast, on account of its haunting the shore and running over the sounds and fjords during the greater part of the year. There it appears regularly along the southern coast in September, travelling in herds from south to north between the islands. They are then fat, but their blubber still increases towards winter. In October and November they are most numerous; in December they decrease, become scarce in January, and almost disappear in February. In May they return from southwards, and get more northerly in June, when they are very lean. The herds again disappear in July, and return in September. Thus the Saddle-back deserts the Greenland coast twice a year. As to their whereabouts during their absence, information is defective. In spring, early in March, and till the beginning of April, it is found in immense numbers in the proximity of the dreary island of Jan Mayen, and in the Spitzbergen waters, in a belt of ice which the sealers term “South-east pack.” To these great broken ice-fields the Seals in vast numbers resort. At such times, as Dr. R. Brown observes, they may be seen, half a million and upwards, of both sexes, “literally covering the frozen waste as far as the eye can reach, with the aid of a telescope, from the crow’s nest.” At this season, the females give birth to their young—one, or occasionally two, in number. Then it is that the sealing-ships bear up towards the pack-ice; and, whenever opportunity permits, after the young are but a few days old, land and commence their slaughter. As the young increase in strength and take to the water the female parents gradually leave them, and join the males, which have already gone north. In July flocks of Seals, termed by Scoresby “Seals’ weddings,” have been seen at times in the parallels of 76° and 77° N. lat. Opinions are at variance respecting the migration from the west coast of Greenland towards Spitzbergen, and eastwards; and Rink, at least, holds that the Seals of Baffin’s Bay go in the spring down the west side of Davis Strait to Newfoundland and Labrador, where vast numbers are annually killed.