The Harp-seal is an Arctic or ice-seal which sometimes finds its way to Britain. The young are born on ice-floes. It is found in great herds in Davis Straits, on the coasts of Greenland, and in the greater part of the frozen Arctic Ocean. It is the animal which the sealing-vessels which hunt seals for oil and "hair"—that is, the leather of the skins, not the fur—seek and destroy. In the old days they could be seen in tens of thousands blackening square miles of ice. They are still so numerous that in Danish Greenland more than 30,000 are taken each year. The Ringed Seal is a small variety, not more than 3 or 4 feet in length, found in great numbers in the Far North. Its flesh is the main food of the Eskimo, and its skin the clothing of the Greenlanders. The seals make breathing-holes in the ice. There the Eskimo waits with uplifted spear for hours at a time, until the seal comes up to breathe, when it is harpooned. The Bladder-nosed Seal is a large spotted variety, with a curious bladder-like crest on the head and nose of the male. Unlike all other seals, it sometimes resists the hunters and attacks the Eskimo in their kayaks.
Photo by York & Son] [Notting Hill.
GREY SEAL.
Seals are not so well adapted as sea-lions for getting about on the dry land, and, except for their habit of coming ashore to bask in the sun, are thoroughly aquatic.
If any evidence were needed of the great destruction which the sealing and whaling industry causes, and has caused, among the large marine animals, the case of the Elephant-seals ought to carry conviction. These are very large seals, the male of which has a projecting nose like a proboscis. They were formerly found both north and south of the Equator, their main haunts being on the coast of California, and on the islands of the South Pacific and Antarctic Ocean. They are gigantic compared with the common seals, some of the males being from 16 to 20 feet long. Cuttle-fish and seaweed are the principal food of this seal, which was formerly seen in astonishing numbers. The whaling-ships which hunted both these seals and sperm-whales at the same time almost destroyed those which bred on the more accessible coasts, just as the earlier whalers entirely destroyed Steller's sea-cow, and their modern descendants destroyed the southern right-whales. The elephant-seal is now very scarce, and when one is killed the skin is regarded as something of a curiosity.
Photo by J. W. McLellan] [Highbury.
GREY SEAL.
Note the difference between the seal's and the sea-lion's hind flippers. When on land, the seal advances by a jumping movement, produced by the muscles of the body, assisted forward by the front flippers.