Essex County herald. [volume] (Guildhall, Vt.) 1873-1964, 1886-01-22
A GREAT ARMY OF SEALS
MILLIONS OF THEM FOUND ON THE
COAST OF LABRADOR.
Habits of the Stockholders Teach
ing Their Young With Tender
SOlicitmde-EerOciom Males.

Habits of the Seals Mothers Teach
ing Their Young With Tender
SOlicitude-Ferociou Males.
In the Greenland seas the seals spend
the two or three summer months, and as
early winter sets in with September they
begin their Southern migrations, keeping
ahead of the ice as it forms,
and moving toward the coast of Labrador,
feeding in its fords and bays as they
move. Small detachments lead the way,
like pioneers, and behind them moves
the great army in one continuous mass.
1t occupies days in passing certain points,
and appears to fill the seas as far as the
eye can reach, impressing the beholder
with an idea of the vast number of seals
on whose ranks the hunters have for
more than eighty years been making sys-
tematic onslaughts, without apparent re-
duction of the supply. Onward the
great army marches, driven from behind
by the fast forming ice, past the straits
of Belle Isle, past Newfoundland, to the
Grand Banks, their Southern headquar-
tess Just as the Greenland seas are their
summer homes. Here they feast upon
swarms of fish till the beginning of
February, when they begin their retreat
uorthward to the very ice they have
Just escaped and there, upon the great
ice argosies descending upon the Arctic
currents, they bring forth their young in
February.
A Newfoundland law forbids sailing
vessels to depart for the seal hunt before
the 1st of March, and the steamers are
not allowed until the 10th of that month.
The vessels arrive when the baby seals,
or "white coats, are three or four weeks
old, still dependent upon their mother
for subsistence, and unable to escape
from the hunters. Their bodies are COW
cred with very thick layer of fat, and
they are far preferable, for this reason,
to the Older seals. When the baby is six
weeks old 1t drops its ycllowish white
coat, and becomes ''ragged coat, " and
at this stage they begin to dip" or take
to the water. 1t is very amusing to
watch mother seal trying to teach a
young one to swim properly. Just as
the eagle stirs up her young and encour-
ages them to use their wings, so the
mother seals tumble the babies into the
water and give them swimming lessons.
The old seal pushes the little one along
toward the edge of the ice, the baby all
the while whimpering and sobbing and
vainly trying to resist the steady pressure
from behind. When at last it falls into
tine water it sobs so piteously that even
the mother is ashamed of herself and
helps her dear offspring back upon the
ice. Every few hours this is repeated,
and soon the young can swim and dive,
and then the vast nursery disappears.
When they are in danger from rafting ice
or fragments of foes dashed about by
the wind and likely to crush them,
the self-sacrifcing affection of the mothers
leads them to brave all dangers, and they
are seen helping their young to places of
safety in the unbroken ice, sometimes
clasping them in their fore flappers and
swimming with them, or pushing them
forward with their noses.
The maternal instinct appears to be
peculiarly strong in the female SEAL and
the tenderness with which the mothers
watch their offspring is most touching.
When the young seals are cradled on the
ice the mothers remain in the neighbOr-
hood, going off each morning to fish,
and returning at intervals to give them
suck. 1t is an extraordinary fact that
old seals manage to keep holes in the
ice open and prevent them freezing over.
On returning from fishing excursion ex-
tending over fifty or hundred miles,
each mother seal manages to find the hole
by which she took her departure, and to
discover her own snow-white cub, which
she proceeds to fondle and suckle This
is certainly one of the most remarkable
achievements of animal instinct. The
Young ''whitecoats" are scattered in
mvriads over the ice field. During the
absence of the mother the ice field has
shifted in position, perhaps many miles,
being borne on the current. Yet each
mother seal is able to pick out her own
cub from the immense herd with unerring
accuracy. 1t is quite touching to wit
ness their signs of distress and grief when
they return to find only a pool of blood
and a skinless carcass instead of their
whimpering little ones.
In the seas around Newfoundland and
Labrador there are four species of seals
the bay seal, the harp, the hood, and the
square fipper. The first and the last are
comparatively rare, and when taken are
of little commercial importance. The
harp seal-the seal of commerce-is SO
called from having broad, curved line
of connected dark spots proceeding from
each shoulder and meeting on the back
above the tail, and forming figure like
an ancient harp. The old harp seals
alone have this figuring and not till their
Vecond year.
The hood seal is much larger and more
ferocious than the harp. The male,
called by the hunters ''the dog-hood, is
distinguished from the female by singu-
lar hood or bag of flesh on his nose.
When attacked or alarmed he initiates his
hood so as to cover his face and eyes, and
it is strong enough to resist seal shot II
is impossible to kill one of these creatures
when his sensitive nose is thus protected,
unless he is shot in the side of the head
and little behind it, so as to strike him
in the neck or the base of the skull. The
hoods bring forth their young two OIL
three weeks later than the harps, and are
generally found further from the shore
on the ice fields, and also further to the
north. The two species are never found
together, unless mingled by some convul
sion of the ice The male and fe
male hood are generally found
together, and it is rule among
hunters to kill the male first
and if they fall in this, and kill the fe
male, the "dog becomes furious, initiates
his hood, while his nostrils dilate into
two huge bladders. His appearance il
! now terrific. and, with uncouth founder