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Show 418 MR. R. BROWN ON THE SEALS OF GREENLAND. [Julie 25, spoken of the young as being different from the male; and in my remarks upon their geographical distribution and migrations reference will be made generally to their period and place of procreation, more theoretically, however, than from actual knowledge or observation. I now supply this from a study of this subject in the Spitzbergen sea. The period at which the Saddlebacks take to the ice to bring forth their young may be stated generally at between the middle of March and the middle of April, according to the state of the season &c, the most common time being about the end of March. At this time they may be seen literally covering the frozen waste as far as the eye can reach with the aid of a telescope, from the "crow's nest" at the main-royal mast-head, and have, on such occasions, been calculated to number upwards of half a million of males and females. After the females have procured suitable ice on which they may bring forth their young, the males leave them and pursue their course to the margin of the ice; there the Seal-hunters lose them, and are at a loss as to what course they take, the common opinion being that they leave for feeding-banks; but where, is unknown. They most probably direct their course along the " cant" of the ice, or among the ice where it has a loose scattered character ; for in the month of M a y sealers fall in with the old Seals (male and female) in about from N. lat. 73° to 75°, and in the following month still further north, by which period the young ones have also joined them. The females commonly produce one at a birth, frequently two; and there is good reason for supposing that there are occasionally three, as most sealers can tell that they have often seen three young ones on a piece of ice floating about which were apparently attended by only one female. Yet it is only proper to remark that, of the several ships I have heard of finding the seals when taking the ice, none of the hunters have been able to tell me that they took more than two from the uterus of the mother*. In contradiction to the opinion of some experienced sealers, I think that it is more than probable that they produce but once a year. (u) The colour after birth is a pure woolly white, which gradually assumes a beautiful yellowish tint when contrasted with the stainless purity of the Arctic snow; they are then called by the sealers "white-coats" or " whitey-coats"f; and they retain this colour until they are able to take the water (when about fourteen or twenty days old). They sleep most of this time on the surface of the snow-covered pack-ice and grow remarkably fast. At this stage they can hardly be distinguished among the icy hummocks and the snow- their colour thus acting as a protection to them ; for in this state they * Perhaps, after all, Pliny has struck the truth in regard to the order, when he says, "Parit nunquam yeminis plures " (Hist. Nat. lib. 9. § 13). t These are rarely seen in Danish Greenland, and then are called " Isblink " by the Danes from their colour; at least, so Fabricius says. He, moreover, informs us that the third year they are called Aylektok (as mentioned above), the fourth Millaktok, and after a winter Kinaylit, when they are beginning to assume the harp-shaped markings of the male (Nat. Selsk. Skrift. i. p. 92). I never heard these names in North Greenland. |