SEALS AND SEAL-HUNTING IN SHETLAND.
IN TWO PARTS.—PART II.[1]
A relative of mine, now dead, used to be a mighty seal-hunter. It was before the days of the modern ‘arms of precision,’ long before breech-loaders were in common use, and even before the Enfield or Minié rifles were invented. In those days, the old muzzle-loading rifle was found to be not a trustworthy weapon; he therefore used a very thick metalled fowling-piece, which was deadly up to sixty or eighty yards. He had a splendid boat, which he named the Haff-fish, about seventeen feet of keel, a capital sea-boat, equally good for sailing and rowing, safe, therefore, in bad weather and rough sea, and at the same time handy to manage when rapid movements might be required, such as landing in narrow creeks, or on slippery shelving rocks, or shallow beaches with a surf on. His crew was composed of four picked men from amongst his fishermen tenants, and his henchman, who was as much friend and adviser as servant, a man of great natural sagacity, intelligence, and fertility of resource, and of prodigious bodily strength; all of them first-class boatmen, expert pilots, familiar with every rock and reef and tideway on the coast and amongst the islands, and withal steady, bright, intelligent fellows. Master and men, all save one, gone now! With this crew, my uncle was wont to start on his seal-hunting expeditions. He would be absent for a week, sometimes more, if the weather should turn out unfavourable; for the distance from his residence to the haunts of the seals was considerable. The first day would be spent amongst the nearest islands; and in the evening he would land, and spend the night in the hospitable mansion of one of his brother lairds, where he was always a welcome guest, his boatmen at the same time making good their quarters at very small cost in the nearest fishermen’s cottages. Next day, and each day while the expedition lasted, he would explore new hunting-ground, spending the nights at some other friends’ houses; and so he would hunt all the islands in Blummel Sound and Yell Sound, the Holms of Gloup, the Neeps of Gravaland, the long line of precipitous coast on the west side of Roonees Hill, the Ramna Stacks, and even the distant Vee Skerries, and other places well known as the principal haunts of the seal. Sometimes, of course, the weather, always fickle in those latitudes, would put a stop to all sport. Not often, but sometimes, even with the most favourable weather, he would return ‘clean.’ At other times he would bring back a number of very substantial trophies of his prowess. In some seasons he would bag—boat I should rather say—as many as forty or fifty. In ten years, during which he kept a careful record of the number he shot, he secured close upon three hundred of both species, and of various ages and sizes, besides killing a considerable number more, which sunk, and he was unable to recover. The most he shot in one day was eleven, ten of which he secured. Not a bad day’s sport.
I have often heard him tell with pride the story of the most deadly shot he ever fired. The weapon was a favourite fowling-piece charged with two bullets, which occasionally wrought great havoc. A small herd of tang-fish was lying on a rock within easy range of some large boulders in the ebb, close to the water’s edge, to which, with infinite labour and circumspection, my relative had crept. Very cautiously, his piece on a good rest, he took a well-calculated aim at the seals, lying close together in a particularly favourable position, and fired. The first bullet killed no fewer than three, and the second ball struck, but did not kill two others, which floundered into the water and escaped; but the other three were secured.
The most extraordinary hour’s sport I have ever heard of was that of a young Shetlander, about three years ago. Reports of it had reached me; but they seemed so incredible, that I thought they must be exaggerated. I therefore wrote to the gentleman himself for the particulars; so I can vouch for the accuracy of what I am going to relate. I quote from his letter:
‘My evening sport at Muckla Skerry was certainly a good one. I started from the Whalsay Skerries about five o’clock of an evening about the end of August or first of September 1881. When nearing the rock, I could see with a glass that it was almost covered with seals—I should say there would have been eighty or more—but all took to the water before a shot was fired, and while we were three to four hundred yards off, and were soon sporting about the boat, but keeping at a respectable distance. It had been perfectly calm for some days, and the sea was like a mirror. I fired eight shots from a short Enfield rifle with government ball cartridge. Two shots missed, and the other six secured a seal each. They were all shot in the water; and singular to say, every one floated on the surface till we took hold of it. One of them was a large fish, measuring six feet four inches long; the others would run from three and a half to five feet in length.... I feel certain I could have shot as many more, if we could have taken them in the boat; but the boat was only ten and a half feet keel, and I had four sturdy oatmeal-fed islanders with me, so that you can fancy how much freeboard we had when the six seals were in our little craft. The time we were at the rock did not exceed forty minutes, and I think that half the time was expended in getting the largest seal into the boat. This was no easy matter, and attended with very considerable risk; but he was quite a prize, and we did not like to let him go.’
Several things in this interesting and spirited account are, so far as I am aware, unprecedented in the annals of seal-hunting in this country. I have never known or heard of any one in so short a time and out of a single herd getting so many fair shots. When one gets amongst a lot of seals, swimming and diving around the boat, one shot is commonly all that you can hope for, and whether you kill or not, it is almost invariably sufficient to send the rest at once far beyond range. Then out of eight shots, to strike and kill with six, considering the expertness of seals in ‘diving on the fire,’ is, I believe, also unprecedented; and to cap all, that not one of the six should have sunk when shot, is extraordinary and unaccountable; for, as I have already said, they sink when killed in the water quite as often as they float, if not oftener. Anyhow, Mr A—— had the rare good fortune to encounter a splendid opportunity, and he made a splendid use of it.
A good dog is a useful auxiliary to a seal-hunter; but he requires a good deal of training to learn his work. Very soon he acquires the art of stalking; but most dogs at first are apparently afraid to lay hold of a dead seal floating in the water, and very commonly, when sent off to fetch him ashore, simply attempt to mount on him, and in consequence do harm rather than good by helping to sink him. But generally—not always, for some dogs we never could train to do the right thing—we succeeded in teaching them to retrieve. When we had brought a seal home, we used to throw it over the jetty or out of a boat with a stout cord attached, and encourage the dog to fetch him. Great praise was bestowed when he learned to lay hold of a flipper and tow the selkie shoreward; in this way, with a little patience and perseverance, the dog soon came to learn what was required; and many a seal was secured by his help, which without it might inevitably have been lost, for a seal shot in the water from the shore, which they often were, was very generally on the opposite side of an island or long promontory, where a landing had been effected; and it took many minutes before the boat could be got round; and by that time, but for the dog, the seal might have sunk.
We tried many breeds of dogs—Newfoundland, Retriever, St Bernard, Rough water-dog, and Collie; but after all, the best seal retriever of the lot was a Collie. When he comprehended what was wanted and how to do it, he did it neatly and thoroughly. I well remember the first seal I shot. I had landed on the weather-side of a small island. A cautious reconnoitring discovered a good-sized seal ‘lying up’ on a detached rock. Then I commenced the stalking, closely followed by my dog. But ere I could approach within range, one of those seal-sentinels and provoking tormentors of the seal-hunter, a herring gull, set up his wild warning scream. The seal perfectly understood what it meant, at once took the alarm, plunged into the water, and disappeared. I sprang to my feet, rushed down along a little promontory, and then crouched behind a big boulder, in hopes that selkie would show his head above water and give me a chance at him. And he did. Raising his head and neck, he took a good look shoreward; but seeing nothing to account for the gull’s persistent screaming, he turned round, and raised his head preparatory to a dive. I had him well and steadily covered; now was my chance. I pulled the trigger; no splash followed, which would have meant a miss; but the lioom—that is, the smoothing of the water by the flow of the oil—told that my bullet had taken effect. ‘Fetch him, old dog! fetch him!’ I cried. In an instant he plunged into the sea and swam to the seal, which I could see was floating. Neatly he dipped his head under water, seized a hind flipper, turned it over his neck, and towed him towards the shore. Passing the rock on which I stood in his way to the beach, he turned his eyes upwards for the praise and encouragement I was not, it may well be believed, backward to lavish on him. Such a look it was! I shall never forget it, instinct with the brightest intelligence, joy, pride, triumph. Indeed, I don’t know whether he or his master was proudest and happiest that day. Alas, that our noble ‘humble friends’ should be so short-lived!
I have not shot a great many seals. They are not now, nor were they in my younger and sporting days, so numerous as they were fifty or sixty years ago, when but a very few persons here and there owned a gun, which with scarcely an exception was only the old regulation flintlock musket. But since the invention of percussion locks, and of the splendid rifles and breech-loaders of the present day, and still more since steamers and sailing-vessels have been constantly plying amongst the islands, where formerly they never were seen, the seals have not had so peaceful a time of it; slaughter and persecution, and the inroads of modern civilisation in general, have greatly diminished their numbers; at least they are not now so frequently met with in their old haunts, from which it is probable most of them have retired, to more inaccessible and therefore safer quarters. These remarks apply only to the common seal. The Great seal was never very numerous anywhere, and there is not much chance of his wild retreats being disturbed except by an occasional hunter.