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Show 420 MR. R. BROWN ON THE SEALS OF GREENLAND. [June 25, the more prominent ones may be retained a longer, and others a shorter time. It would require a very careful and extended study of this animal to decide on this point, which, owing to their migrations, it is impossible to give. After all, these changes and their rapidity vary according to the season and the individual, and really will not admit of other than a general description. Habits.-It has few other characteristic habits beyond what is mentioned regarding the order generally, or in other sections of this paper on its migrations &c. It is looked upon by the Greenlanders as rather a careless, stupid Seal, easily caught by a very ordinary kayaker. Its food consists of any small fish (Mallotus arcticus, Fab., & c ) , Crustacea, and even Mollusca. In this its habits agree with those of other species. Geographical range and migrations.-The Saddleback has a wide range, being found at certain seasons of the year in almost all parts of the Arctic Ocean, from the American coasts to Nova Zembla, and perhaps even further; it appears that the Phoca oceanica (Lepechin, Acta Petropolitana, 1777, t. i. pp. 1, 259, t. 6, 7) is identical with it. Stragglers even find their way into temperate regions; and this is so frequently the case that this Seal may now be classed in the fauna of nearly all of the northern shores of Europe and America. The period of the year influences its position in the Spitzbergen sea (the Greenland sea of the Dutch, the " Old Greenland " of the English whalers). Early in March it is found by the sealing-ships in immense numbers in the proximity of the dreary island of Jan Mayen *, off the east coast of Greenland, not far from the 72nd parallel of north latitude; but, of course, the longitude varies with the extent which the ice stretches out to the eastward, though the common meridian is between 6° and 8° west of Greenwich. They are never found far inwards on the fixed ice, but on the margin of the icebelt which extends along the whole of the eastern shores of Greenland, stretching as far as the longitude of Iceland, and sometimes even for a hundred miles to the eastward of that island and of Jan Mayen island into the ocean. The general direction of its sea-margin is towards the north-east, stretching most commonly as far as Spitzbergen, to N. lat. 80°, but occasionally only to about 75° N. lat., where it joins at an angle another belt of ice which lies in a southern and eastern direction along the coast of Spitzbergen to Cherrie Island. This easterly belt of ice is what the whalers call a " south-east pack ;" and at the angle where the two belts join, a passage can generally be accomplished through to the Spitzbergen waters. The nature of the ice, which can easily be perceived by the experienced sealer, determines whether the Seals will be found far from the margin of the ice. Thus, if there is much new light ice, it is probable that the Seals will have taken the ice at a considerable distance from the seaboard margin of the pack, as it is well known that instinctively * Hence the Norse sealers often call it the Jan Mayen Kobbe (the Jan Mayen Seal), but more often the Springer, from its gambolling motions in the water (Newton, /. ci). |
