The seals and whales of the British seas / by Thomas Southwell.

  • Southwell, Thomas, 1831-1909.
Date:
1881
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The seals and whales of the British seas / by Thomas Southwell. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    duced at a birth. Some species enter the water almost immediately after birth, but others are two or three weeks before they leave the ice, quitting it at first very unwillingly, but soon becoming expert at swimming and diving. The power of the Seal to remain beneath the water for lengthened periods Dr. Wallace* believes to be acquired rather than structural. Their food consists of Crustacea and fish, with an occasional sea-bird. Some species are migratory in their habits. In disposition they are usually timid and gentle, and capable of attachment, when in confinement, to those who feed and attend them. The Bladder-nose and Grey Seals, however, appear to be exceptions to this rule; the former is said to be fierce and vindictive, rather courting than fleeing from danger, and altogether a formidable opponent. Their great affection for their young is made use of by the sealers for their destruction. Although Seals are not found in sufficient numbers round our own coast to be of any commercial value, in the Northern Seas, where they congregate in vast numbers at the breeding season, the seal-fishery is of great importance as a branch of industry, and finds employment for a large number of vessels and men, both from this country and from the ports of Northern Europe. In the Greenland seal-fishery the Norwegian whalers had in 1874 sixteen steamers and nineteen sailing-ships, with an aggregate tonnage of 9,000 tons, manned by 1,600 sailors, and in the three years ending 1874 they killed 142,500 young Seals and 128,000 old ones, notwithstanding which the balance-sheet of the three years showed only a small profit on the steamers and a large loss on the sailing vessels.f An official return issued by Messrs. David Bruce and Co., of Dundee, shows that in the season of 1879, eleven Dundee ships and five from Peterhead, were engaged in the Greenland seal-trade ; the total catch of these * Dr. Robert Brown on the ‘ Seals of Greenland.’ Reprinted, with additions, in the * Manual and Instructions for the Arctic Expedition, 1875,’ from the Proc. Zool. Soc., 1868, pp. 405-440. + Land and Wate)August 26th, 1875.
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