Part 27 (2/2)

BEASTS BIG AND LITTLE

Both on sea and land, Labrador anih as Labrador people to stand the hard life they must lead

Dr Grenfell tells of a seal family he saw killed on an ice-pan about half the size of a tennis-court

They were surprised by four sealers, ooden bats Before they gave up their lives they put up a treht a club in hisit froet off the pan

But at last he was dealt such a blow on the head that it was supposed he was killed

Instead of stripping off the pelt as the fallen monster lay on the pan, the sealers hoisted hi lifted over the rail--two thousand pounds of hie carcass splashed

The cold water revived him

He swam back to the pan, which was htered faht so desperately to protect

The pan stood about six feet out of the water Yet the great ani himself upon it

The men, who had bread and tea to win for their fao

They went back after him, and this time they did not trust to their wooden bats They used a few of their precious cartridges and shot him And then they ”scalped” him on the spot, and hauled the skin over the rail

It is painful to think of such a fate for the brave old warrior

Just as the cod-traps are put out fro the beach where they are fairly sure to pass at certain times of the year There is a capstan from which the doorway of the seal-trap may be closed with a few turns The Doctor tells of one ”liveyere” family that took nine hundred seals in this way: and three to four hundred is nothing unusual One trapper na seals with the net that he became ”purse-proud” From his land where there are no roads, he sent to Quebec for a carriage and horses, and then he had a road built on which he hbors how rich he was Then, for his dances o' winter nights, no local fiddler would serve, scraping and patting his foot on the floor He hired a real s and reels to a continuous round of feasts and oes, it is often only one generation frorandchildren finally found themselves with less than the shi+rt-sleeves They appealed to Dr Grenfell, and he found so

The whale is really a land ani, and so took to ”a roving, nautical life”

Since the legs were no longer useful, in the course of tis, and were enclosed in the thick, tough skin

The ”ar to boast of They are not useful for swie bulk, and mother whale seizes her baby with them when she takes alarm

The eyes are tiny, for when a whale eats he is not particular

It takes so ive a whale a square meal, that if he e jaws, at the top of his narrow gullet, he need not worry The whale never starves until he is stranded Out of water he may continue to breathe for an hour or two--but he cannot eat

”On a fineon the Labrador Coast,” Dr Grenfell tells us, ”I have counted a dozen whales in a single school Now and again a huge tail would ee fro a sound like the firing of a cannon, while the silence was otherwise broken only by the noise of their blowing, as they rolled lazily along on the surface”

The thresher whale is only about twenty feet long, but he is a fierce fellow--the pirate of the whale fa in sight

He has a fin which shohere he is as he cruises along close to the surface He readily eats other whales Three threshers went after a big cow sperm whale and her enormous infant, in shalloater First they killed the ”calf” Then they chased theone