Page:The Zoologist, 4th series, vol 3 (1899).djvu/128

104 hoped great advantages may be derived from these concessions, but, as usual, there is considerable diversity of opinion.

Great uncertainty always exists as to the locality in which the breeding Seals will be found, and so entirely does this depend upon circumstances which it is impossible to anticipate with any degree of confidence, that the most experienced are often disappointed in their forecasts. What usually takes place on the east coast seems to be as follows:—Until the last days of February the breeding Harp Seals are found frequenting the neighbourhood of Greenbay and Whitebay, then, their time for reproducing having arrived, they all disappear, going off in search of suitable ice on which to whelp; this, as a rule, they find in about the latitude of Cape Bauld, sometimes comparatively near, at other times farther off the land; they then drift south with the ice borne by the southerly arctic current, which probably expands as its flows. But their progress is by no means an uninterrupted one: many and violent are the storms to which they are exposed, and the ice is driven hither and thither, sometimes comparatively open, at others rafted and piled in inextricable confusion, many of the young Seals perishing owing to the ice-fields on which they lie being broken up. Westerly winds drive the ice off the shore, and easterly winds in the contrary direction, or it may be broken up and more or less dispersed by northerly gales. The weather too is variable in the extreme, the changes being often sudden and unexpected. Hence the difficulty in forecasting the probable position of the breeding pack, and the great risks attending their pursuit when found. The Seals are very sagacious, and it is said of them that when Greenbay and Whitebay are full of ice at whelping time they will not go so far out to whelp as they would if the bays were free from ice, their object appearing to be to get a good stretch of ice between themselves and the land.

The steamers, many of which had deserted St. John's in favour of a more northerly point of departure, have in the past season nearly all returned to that port. Eighteen vessels in all (two less than in 1897) took part in the venture, five of them visiting the Gulf of St. Lawrence, the remainder fishing off the east coast. The latter found the Seals without loss of time some distance to the N.E. of Funk Island, but the state of the