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home.
While all those seals ver-e in White Bay many of the fleet were also
securing loads or good trips off Cape Bonavista and other directions .
\l1th r egar d to the movements and habd.t.e of the seals, very little, if any,
attempt ha s been made to investigate, more e specdeLIy of later yea rs.
One man
could have given us 'the most valuable information had anyone in authority thought
1t 'Wor t h his 'While to ask him and were he disposed to do 80, and that man \J8S the
late Ca pt . Arthur Jackman .
He p'Loved the Arctic Ocean in all directions, and
must undoubtedly have talked over t he matter with the inhabitants of t he Far North,
whose chief i ndu stry is the catching of seaLa , Those peop le 1n Iceland , Greenland,
Northern Labrador, et.c , , must necesser-Lky be interested in t.heae matters, but I
have never read or heard of any practical account of the movements or habits of
the seals until they come on our coast the last veek i n Februar-y or early in March .
Where do they go during the summer months? I mean the harps . And what has become
of the numerous herds of hoods?
We knov that to every old dog hood t hat vas
killed t.be r-e were at least ten bitches. It vee no child's play to tackle an old
dog hood , vhil s t it \M,S ccepar-atdve Iy easy vork' to dispose of the old female . The
F:squimos on Labrador cou ld give valuable information about the movements of the
eee'Le, but, I suppose , rev people took the trouble to ask them , and the very
- pos s i bi lit y -of OUr rindiniaut full pa rttculars viII be when t~ *e;'~~2? vill- .. _~.~
I • ~
take a prominent place in travelling through the air at sixty or a hundred miles
an hour, and we can purchase them aa cheaply as we can 8 black punt, at the present
day . Natural ists and scientists have done much the past qua rter of a century, but
t hey have exerted their
t al en t s very little in ddeccverdng t he movements, habits
and eve rything else connected vi t h seals. 1 t rus t it will not be like the tribe
of Indians vhich V8B df ecover-ed by the novelist ~ey became extinct.