Boy Jack was a stripling of thirteen years, the son of a hardy seaman, who has determined to bring up the lad to his own calling from his earliest years; having this object in view he was given over to the tender care of our cook. Nothing seems to escape the quick eye of the youngster, and in the late busy adventures he is everywhere, full of childish glee at the prospect of sport like this. "" Look," shouts the lad, pointing to a little hecatomb of seals prostrate on the ice, "there! there is a pussy not dead yet, and he's biting his mother!" Sure enough, the young seal evidently is furtively biting at a dead one, and it is equally evident that the poor beast is endeavouring to rouse its parent to flee for her life, little heeding the weapons of the crew, in its almost human solicitude for its natural protector. It is of no avail; a bullet fired by the hand of some considerate sailor, takes the life it could of itself hardly sustain, now that it is deprived of the watchful care of its dam.

Of all the curious and abnormal modes of progression on land, practised by animals, commend us to the seal. There are walkers, runners, leaping, bounding, hopping, skipping, creeping animals; and these suggest to the anatomist the most dissimilar modes of progression. Some raise the body in erect or semi-erect postures; others, by far the greater number, carry the body hori

But

zontally above, and support it on four feet, while others again, as the sloths, suspend the body and head downwards, moving more slowly amongst the branches of trees, with a series of successive clutches of their hooked claws; then there are the various modes by which the feet and hands are approximated to the ground they move upon. Either the foot is placed flat, as in the bear's way of walking, or the knuckles, the rims of the soles, or the tips of the claws are used as the fulcra; the tail again is the means of support to some monkeys and the opossum. By means of the tail in these creatures, the body either hangs suspended or is swung forward in the progress of the animal. of all the odd movements, and as Dr. Murie says, "the most sadly ridiculous one, is the shuffling, wriggling, belly progressive gait of many of the seal tribe on terra firma." The walrus has been seen to waddle on all fours, and the eared seal has a somewhat similar power of locomotion, but the west ice seals differ little except in size from the ordinary seal of our coasts (unless when the coat is dry, when it is of a lighter colour), except in those cases which are far from infrequent, when there is no coat of fur whatever, and the great animals have almost lost all pretensions to form and outline owing to their inordinate fat. Then, indeed, there is no

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mistaking them for any other; all trace in such specimens of the dark patch across the loins by which the species is recognised as the harp seal, or saddle-back seal, is lost. The distinguished anatomist we have quoted had a capital opportunity of observing the motions of the Greenland seal in confinement, and he has ably pointed out the difference of the gait of the saddle-back when compared with ' others. He states that this seal very often uses its fore-limbs, placing them on the ground in a semigrasping manner, and by an alternate use of them drags its body along. The hind legs, meantime, are either trailed behind slightly apart, or with opposed plantar surfaces slightly raised and shut stiffly behind. On uneven ground, or in attempting to climb, a peculiar lateral wriggling movement is made, and at such times, besides alternate palmar action, the body and the hind legs describe a sinuous semispiral or wave-track. And he goes on to state that it was not until he had well thought over this pawcreeping movement of the northern seal that he fully appreciated an incident related by Mr. Charles Davidson, which that gentleman had been witness to in one of his Arctic voyages.

"At more than a mile distance from their ship a solitary seal was noticed lying dozing near an "escape

hole" on the ice. An Esquimaux thereupon, in his seal-skin garment and hood, formed quite like the head of the animal he was in pursuit of, and with lance and rope coil, slowly crawled towards the creature. For a while it apparently took little notice of him, but at last showed indications of being on the alert. The man by this time was still far off, but the moment he observed the seal watching him, he advanced perfectly sealfashion, and whilst it steadily gazed, evidently mistaking him for one of its own species, as he at times imitated to very life every phocine movement, he approached within a very short distance. Then suddenly starting up he sent his lance whirling into the creature's vitals ere it could scramble in safety to the blow-hole."

CHAPTER IV.

"Full many a gem of purest ray serene
The dark, unfathomed caves of ocean bear;
Full many a flower is born to blush unseen,
And waste its sweetness on the desert air."

As the cold of this inhospitable region crept insensibly upon us an incident occurred, simple enough in itself but suggestive of sentiment.

Among the involuntary captives brought away from Old England by our schooner, were a few flies. As for their own special convenience and comfort they had selected our cabin for a home while the craft was lying in port, neglecting to heed the warning when our other visitors left us, they were forced to endure the consequences of their heedless devotion to pleasure. Now English flies were not born to flutter among icebergs, and their delicate frames yielded only to the change of climate. We, on first leaving home, had no manner of interest in the creatures; insensibly drawn to the very few survivors associated with a summer land, their presence in our cabin was more welcome than tolerated, but when the