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Show 1868.] MR. R. BROWN ON THE SEALS OF GREENLAND. 419 are perfectly helpless, and the sealer kills them with a blow of the sharp-pointed club or a kick over the nose with his heavy boot. The mother will hold by her young until the last moment, and will even defend it to her own destruction. I have known them seize the hunter when flaying the young one, and inflict severe wounds upon him. In 1862, during a severe gale of wind many of the young seals were blown off the ice and drowned. Sometimes the sealing-ships have accidentally fallen among them during the long dark nights of the end of March or beginning of April, and were aware of their good luck only from hearing the cries of the young Seals. The white-coat changes very quickly. In 1862 the late Capt. George Deuchars, to whom science is indebted for so many specimens, brought me two alive from near Jan Mayen; they were white when brought on board, but they changed this coat to a dark one completely on the passage, of a week or ten days. They ate fresh beef, and recognized different persons quite readily. The young "whitecoat" represented on the plate oi Phoca barbata by Dr. Hamilton ("Amphibious Carnivora," Naturalist's Library, vol. viii. pl. 5), from a specimen in the Edinburgh Museum, is not the young of that species, but of Pagophilus groenlandicus. The young white-coat, however, is much plumper than the specimen figured; indeed, in proportion to its size, it has much more blubber between the skin and the flesh than the adult animal. (/3) They take the water under the guidance of the old females. A t the same time the colour of the skin begins to change to that of a dark speckled and then spotted hue; these are denominated " Hares " by the sealers*. (y) This colour gradually changes to a dark bluish colour on the back, while on the breast and belly it is of a dark silvery hue. Young Seals retain this appearance throughout the summer and are termed "Bluebacks" by the sealers of Spitzbergen, "Aglektok " by the Greenlanders, Blaa-siden by the Danesf. (c) The next stage is called Millaktok by the Greenlanders. The Seal is then approaching to its mature coat, getting more spotted, & c , and the saddle-shaped band begins to form. (e) The last stage (in the male to which these changes refer) is the assumption of the halfmoon-shaped mark on either side, or the " saddle " as it is called by the northern sealers. I consider that about three years are sufficient to complete these changes. This is also the opinion held in Newfoundland, though the Greenland people consider that five years are necessary. I wish, however, to say that these changes do not proceed so regularly as is usually described, some of them not lasting a year, others longer, while, again, several of the changes are gone through in one year; in fact the coats are always gradually changing, though some of * In this state it is not unlike Halichcerus grypus, but can be distinguished by the characters given by Nilsson, Skand. Fauna, i. p. 301. + The dental formula of a Seal in this stage killed by m e in Davis's Strait, September 1861, was :- Incisors 5 ; canines ^ ; molars ^ |