The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1898-06-23
THE KILLING OF SEALS.
Wonderful Vitality and Desperate
Courage shown by the Old
Dog Hood.

Now, l had great opportunities of
watching the young seals. Balls of snow
white fluff, these innocent looking ba-
bies lie basking in their icy cradles,
equally happy in sunshine or falling
snow, sometimes for hours on their
backs, tapping their fiippers impotent-
ly like fans, unable from sheer fat
to get over again. In the coolest, storm
lest season they grow fastest and fat
test, so marvelously does nature pro-
vide for their necessities. Nor does
she do less for the old seals. So thin that
| they sink at once if shot in the water
in summer, as winter approaches they
fatten and fatten up, till now they en-
| JOY this terribly cold weather as we
would a bath in summer. They dive in
off the ice, paddle to and fro in the
water, throw themselves on their backs
| and float, putting out their chests and
throwing showers of water over their
upturned noses with forehippers. Side
stroke and break stroke, diving and
sounding, they sport about, till one all
most feels tempted to follow and share
| tHtlI Id ptuIOuS pledSuIeS
The killing of the young seals has
| been frequently described as brutal
| and brutalizing, and the seal hunters
| depicted as savages. But, to my mind,
| the work is not nearly so brutalizing
as the ordinary killing of sheep, pigs
| or oxen.
Here the animal is too young to feel
fear, and evinces no sign of it; no anv
| imal is wounded and left to die in vain.
The crying" of young seals is not from
fear, but hunger. One often hears
them cry all night for their dams,
while they never give tongue at mans
| approach.
1t is only in killing the old dog hood
seals that one feels the savagery of
killing anything, for the hoods marvel
Gus vitality is only equaled by his
pluck. | watched four men fight an
old dog hood one day on small pan.
| Reared up on his launches. with his
hood blown up, he awaited the attack.
The first blow, struck at his hood,
| might as well have struck a stone wall.
while catching the second gaff-end clev-
| erly in his teeth, he shook its long
handle to such good purpose that he
| cleared the pan of his enemies in an in
| slant. Though he could at any moment
have slipped off into the water, he
would not do So, and soon a lucky blow
| under the jaw stretched him out. A
| perfect shower of blows on the head
seemed to finish him off, and, a heavy
strap being placed around him, he was
hauled to the bulwarks by the steam
| winch.
Just as he got there his immense
weight broke it down, and he disap-
peared, we thoaght for good. But in
minute or so he suddenly appeared
again, and, refreshed by the cod wa
ter, he climbed out on the very same
pan, where the hunters were ungallant
enough to return and dispatch him
with their long knives. Nor does the
| hunter by any means have it all his
own way. SO agile and powerful are
| these beasts that they will jump clear
| out of the water into a pan six to ten
feet high without touching the edge,
when in &c other way they could climb
| onto il. aud many man has been bad
| ly pauied and bitten and dragged into
TIE water in endeavoring to capture the
Yaliant old MISUNDERSTANDING Dis
patch.