THE SEAL
Towards the latter end of May, the grown-up lady seals sought a corner of the shore where the slope was gentle and the sun was warm; the younger seals betook themselves, together with the old males, to another part of the coast, out of sight and hearing. Before the first of the long June days had come to bring new jewels to the treasury of the sea, the meaning of the separation was made plain—there were many little baby seals playing by their mothers’ side. Some rested upon a little nest of white wool that had nothing to do with their skin, which was dark and of a different texture. No mother had more than one child.
Had you passed among the mother seals in the very early June days, while they sprawled at ease, suckling their little ones, you might have noticed one male seal who was rather bigger and more intelligent than most of his neighbours. You would not have been able to go among or even near them unless you had taken the form of a red shank, or an oyster-catcher, or of one of the other sea birds that are the particular friends of seals; but you may take it, that this baby was the best of the pack, if only because the story is concerned with his career.
From the tongue of rock that overlooked the smiling waters, the baby seal, clinging to his mother’s side, heard the summer song of the sea, mingled pleasantly with the wondering bleating cries of many little babies like himself.
“Take me to the water,” he whispered to his mother.
“Cling round my neck, then,” she replied, lowering her head, and he did as she bade him, as well as his feeble limbs would permit.
“Hold on tightly,” she cried, and cast herself off the rock into the deep water, that plashed and curled and danced round them, as though for very love of seals.
“Soon you will learn to dive,” said Mother Seal, “you will be able to sleep on the water or under it, to catch fine fat fish when you do not want my milk any more. You are born to a beautiful life; so be happy.”
Day after day, mother and son lay side by side for hours on a ledge of rock that Mother Seal’s body had worn smooth; they spent only the hottest hours in the water. Soon the little one learned to face the sea, holding on to one of his mother’s flippers; then he went in quite boldly alone and learned to dive, and saw the fish that lived in the depths, and pursued them clumsily and in fun, for he was not yet weaned.
Only when he was two months old, and had grown quite rapidly, did his mother tell him that he must now learn to feed himself, and by this time it was an easy task, as the plaice and flounders soon found to their cost. They could not hide themselves in the sand sufficiently quickly to escape from his pursuit.
Having finished her maternal duties, Mother Seal changed her coat. The spots that had marked it became very light, and the skin itself assumed a yellow tint that seemed quite like silver at times.
“Is it time to change?” asked the male seals, who had now returned with the young sons and daughters to the maternal haunts. “If it is, we have no time to lose,” and they, too, put on the light summer dress which was, with all who wore it, a symbol of joy and happiness, a tribute to the halcyon days when domestic cares were laid aside, when there was hardly any night, when food was plentiful, and the sun seldom ceased to shine upon warm and tranquil waters.
The seals, scattered now into little groups in every bay and round every islet, enjoyed their idle days to the full. Sometimes they would travel upshore quite a long way, and laze upon the dry sand, the younger and less experienced among them being most addicted to such journeys. Every crag that looked out over the deep water had its noisy tenants, and throughout August there would be a series of dances given by various seal hosts and hostesses, at which the most agile among the visitors would glide through the water in dolphin fashion. They were inclined to be rather jealous of the dolphins.
During this pleasant season the Little Seal, now in the enjoyment of his liberty, made friends with a very old Herring-gull. The bird lighted upon his rock one afternoon and saluted him in friendliest fashion.
“I fish for my living just as you do,” he remarked, “but you have some advantages over me. However, there is room for all of us, so we might as well be friends. You will find some of my family with your people all through the summer. We sometimes warn them of the approach of man.”
“What is man?” queried the Young Seal, “and why do you warn us?”
“Man,” explained the Herring-gull, “is the sworn foe of all things in the heavens above, on the earth beneath, and in the waters under the earth. He shoots birds in the air, pursues beasts on the land, and catches fish from the sea. If he saw you now he would certainly kill you, not because you have done him any harm, but because you are alive. He would probably shoot you, and say you were a nice little fellow, for he does not bear malice.”
“But that would be murder, would it not?” asked the Seal, opening his eyes to the fullest extent.
“Oh, dear no,” replied the Herring-gull, “it would be sport,” and flew away, leaving the puzzled youngster to think the matter out for himself.
With September, another change of colour came to the seals. Their coat became rather darker than before, and the black spots, that began on the head and spread in ever growing patches over the body, reappeared. The flippers darkened to a heavy brown, and with all these changes came an altered mood, and the males began to fight for possession of the females.
The Young Seal took no part in these contests, though his coat showed the influence of the season; he was little more than a baby, and, on the advice of the Herring-gull, he kept away from the scene of the fighting. He had made small progress in growth since weaning time came, the fish diet that made him strong had done little to help him to develop. This mattered not at all; strength rather than length was needed to face the rough days that lay before the seal world when September was at an end, and the long fight between adult male seals was over. There was very little love in the camp during that season. Polygamy prevailed, and the conqueror took as many wives as he could keep away from his weaker brethren; but when the last fight had been fought and the early cold snaps reminded them of the hard season ahead, friendly relations were resumed throughout the community.
At the bidding of the storm-wind the sea parted with its beautiful tints, the water became very cold and lashed itself into terrible fury, and foamed like a bayed wolf. Many a rough buffet it gave to the Young Seal, and not a few bruises, but the low temperature did no harm to him. He had enough pure oil in his body to withstand Arctic cold, and on these northern Scottish shores the temperature never approached Arctic severity. His friend the Herring-gull had gone; he saw no birds now within speaking distance, though a few gulls passed down wind every few hours of the day, trying in vain to steer along the road they wished to follow.
As the winter advanced, the seals split into small groups on some family basis of their own, and passed most of their time on the rocks, climbing up from the water by the aid of the strong nails in their foreflippers and the muscles of the tail. They always faced the water from which they had risen, and their attitude at this season was a very listless one, as if the triumph of wind and rain were not altogether to their liking.
When the Little Seal joined his family party, consisting of the mother, two male seals, and several children of two and three years old—eight in all—he soon found that the bottom of the water was the most comfortable part of the world within his reach. Down upon the smooth sandy bottom there fell no shadow of the trouble cast upon the upper waters and the land, and so he learned to remain for long drowsy periods, half-sleeping, half-waking, roused to instant activity by the sense of the presence of a fish. He could see under the water as clearly as he could upon the land, and his whiskers were developing the sensitiveness that belongs to seals in even a larger measure than to cats.
These nerves served to rouse him when he was almost asleep, and indicated the presence of food. When after even a long hunt he had caught his fish, he did not need to seek land; he could eat it at his ease under the waves; and if he came up afterwards, it was generally to tread water with his flippers, and look round to take his bearings.
Finally, when he was quite tired of the sea, he would return to the home rock, climb up in the manner described, and then, resting his head upon the body of the seal nearest to him, go to sleep. Every seal attached himself to his neighbour in this fashion for reasons of safety. When they were lying in such close touch, the first sign of alarm was communicated automatically to one and all. Perhaps in that quiet corner there was little need for such extravagant precautions, but the history of seals throughout the world is one long drawn-out tragedy, and the need for care had become as strong an instinct as any that entered into their simple lives. In old days, and among kind superstitious folks, the seals had been mermen and mermaids; and when they sat on rocks in the sunshine, passing their webbed toes through their coat to keep it bright and lustrous, simple seafaring men had thought they saw mermaidens combing their golden locks. The sunlight had supplied the gold, and perhaps the little waves had lent the song; and so the story grew, and passed into legend, and gladdened many a child-like simple heart, even though it dwelt in a time-worn body. But now, in the place of gold, men had introduced the age of lead; mermaids and mermen shocked an age that held materialism to be the highest form of faith, and knew that a leaden bullet properly aimed could kill the most beautiful creature that ever played about a summer sea. So the old seals, grown wary, exercised what care they could to save their helpless, harmless families from the enemy man.
Spring came back at last, and if it made little or no difference to the aspect of the rock-strewn shore, there were pleasant changes beyond. The waters subsided and lost their angry colour, the days lengthened, the light grew stronger, and sea birds came back to the cliffs to lay their eggs, and scream and quarrel in the old familiar fashion. And with the advent of May the adult female seals withdrew from the others, and the adult males retired with the younger generation to another part of the coast where, as good luck would have it, our friend found the old Herring-gull busily pursuing his fishing.
“I’d like to travel,” said the Young Seal, whose blood tingled with the spirit of the season. “I’m tired of stopping always in one place. Where does the sea end? You ought to know, seeing that you can fly all over it.”
“The sea has no end and no beginning,” explained the Herring-gull. “It is like the sky, boundless. Wherever I go, I find the sea. But if you wish to travel, follow the coast down until you come to a place where the water turns in towards the land. Follow carefully, until it narrows, and you reach a part where men have spread great nets. They are put there to catch a wonderful fish with scales as bright as a herring’s, and a pink body that all seals love to feed upon. But be careful to stay well beyond the nets, and do not let greed tempt you to travel too far. Then I shall see you back in the late summer, and you will thank me.”
This advice seemed very good to the Young Seal, who felt no family ties and had a love of adventure. He set out, resting from time to time upon the shore, and keeping the best possible look out for strangers. As he moved down the coast, he met a seal two years older than himself, bound on the same errand, and this one promised to show him the road. Having company, each seal was bolder than before, and as the sea was teeming with fish just then, they moved quite slowly to the home of the great pink delicacy. One fine afternoon they lay at their ease high upon the shore, and came near to be cut off, for a pleasure boat hove in sight, and they had to rush towards it in search of safety. This was a thrilling experience, and might have ended very differently if any of the four men on the boat had carried a gun. As it was, the two seals ran down the beach in fearful haste, raising sand and shingle very freely, as they progressed in awkward jerks, first on their chest, then on their stomach. To the men in the boat the movements appeared so strange that they could hardly row for laughter, indeed the reduction of their efforts may have accounted for the seals’ escape, but to the two frightened animals the case was quite different—they found nothing to laugh at. When they reached water at last, they were very sore, stiff and bruised; sharp stones and rocks had hurt them very considerably. They remained under the water for a very long time, and only ventured to show their heads above it a long way down the coast. At the same time the incident was not without considerable value. It taught them that an enemy might appear at any moment, and that they must not venture inland either when the tide was receding or when the shape of the coast corner tended to obstruct the view.
At length they reached the river’s estuary, and moving along it with extreme caution, found a point where the banks narrowed a little below the netting. There they remained for some weeks, and the Younger Seal found that the salmon seeking the fresh water were worthy of everything the Herring-gull had said in their praise. He remembered the advice that had been given to him; his little experience along the coast had done something to fix it in his mind, and it is doubtful whether the fisher folk who looked after the nets realised the close presence of the seals. Doubtless the men, to whom some of the salmon fell in the latter days, knew that the fish had run the gauntlet, for now and again a salmon escaping with his life from seal and nets carried to the upper waters the mark of the seal’s teeth. If not gripped behind the neck, many a salmon could tear himself away with little serious hurt.
At last the fish began to decrease in numbers and the Seal had eaten enough salmon to satisfy him for a long time. He began to think with pleasure of the life that awaited him among his own people, and of the joys of basking at ease without fear of disturbance. In the estuary he had been bound to observe the greatest care, and now he was not feeling quite well, the season of change was upon him. So he went down again to the open water, and turned his head to the north, covering the road home in comparatively short time, and arriving to find that the female seals were silvered, and that the males were beginning to change colour. He told all his experiences to the Herring-gull, but said nothing about them to his brethren. Instinct told him that if the salmon ground should be invaded by the seals, man the enemy, who owned the nets, would resent the invasion after his own brutal fashion. Strange though it may appear, he knew himself for a poacher.
This summer did not differ from the last. Perhaps the Seal climbed higher rocks than he had cared to face in the previous year, and perhaps he was more nervous if alarmed, and more careless when undisturbed. There were some rocks that the high tide covered and the low tide left bare, and he took a particular pleasure in seeking one of these at the ebb and sleeping on the top until the flood lifted him off into the water—sometimes to finish his sleep there.
Though his colour changes were well defined now, he took no part in the September fighting, he was not yet sufficiently matured to seek a mate. His sex was fairly clear by now, particularly when he was with a female of his own age, for then his jaws and teeth were larger and stronger than hers would be, and his head was rather bigger. In disposition he was kind and gentle, and would play for hours with his half-sister, a baby girl seal born to his mother about the time when he sought the salmon. He taught her many of his cleverest tricks, and sometimes went with her, in pursuit of fish, to places she could not have visited alone. So she saw nothing of the savage September fights in which many male seals were quite badly torn.
Another winter passed uneventfully, another spring saw considerable increase in the seal colony, and following it a partial migration in search of fresh feeding grounds. The gulls and sea swallows told the seals they liked best the very quiet and well-stocked corners of the coast; they had the best opportunities of finding out where safety and plenty were associated.
The Young Seal took his half-sister down the coast to the river estuary, and they stayed from time to time upon the top of a high rock that was well out of the reach of man. But some of the salmon that came to the nets were very badly mauled, and the men in charge began to keep a sharp look-out. At first they were uncertain whether otters or seals were in the estuary, then a field-glass revealed the presence of the real enemy, and a Norwegian who was among the workers at the nets offered to mend matters in a certain brutal fashion practised in his own land. He rowed out to the rock when the seals were not at home, and fixed eight or ten barbed hooks round the base on a stout rope. Then, on the following morning, when the seals were at rest upon the rock, the boat appeared suddenly, and they slid off into the water.
As good luck, or their light weight, would have it, little harm was done. The Elder Seal was badly scratched, and his young companion had a torn flipper; but the injury was only bad enough to keep them from the rock and send them farther down stream to the mouth of the estuary, where they soon found the salmon too quick for them, and made up their minds to return.
When September came, the Young Seal showed fight, and actually endeavoured to enter into competition with one of his elders for the possession of a lady seal who was at least two years his senior. The contest was a brief one. A few leaps out of the water, one or two valiant attempts to bite, and the smaller combatant received a terrible scratch that put the fear of death into him, and cost quite a lot of his young hot blood.
He sought the refuge of a lonely crag, and felt exceedingly sorry for himself. There his faithful half-sister found him, and stretched herself by his side and kissed him affectionately, while the Herring-gull came and talked wisely to him, and between the efforts of his two friends and well-wishers he was induced to take a brighter view of life.
“You are much too young to take a wife,” explained the Gull cheerfully; “why, if you succeed in securing one two years from now, you will have done well.”
“I shall never get over this trouble,” groaned the Seal, showing the nasty gash left by his opponent’s flipper. “Where I fell back into the water, it was quite red and horrid.”
“Nonsense,” said the Herring-gull quite cheerfully; “you’ll be quite right by the time your dark spots have come back. Your enemy did not want to maul you very severely, or you would have had a very different tale to tell. He could have ripped you up, or cracked your skull as if it were no thicker than an egg-shell, had he been in earnest. No seal should think of fighting for a mate before he is three years old at least. There isn’t a seal of your age that has a wife in any part of the sea I ever sailed over, and very few would be so foolish as to search for one!”
This information cheered the Young Seal, but he kept away from his companions until his wounds were healed, and, returning, found that all quarrels had been forgotten, and the kindliest feelings ruled. To be sure, there were occasional fights, but they were quite friendly affairs like the dances and games of “Follow my leader” in which the community delighted.
Two years passed uneventfully, the Seal was an adult now nearly six feet long, victorious in the September fights, and master of many lady-loves. The Herring-gull was gathered to his forefathers, and it was from a younger generation that news came to the seal family of certain changes fraught with grave danger to one and all. The land lying round the little bay they knew and loved so well had passed from the hands that held it for so long and was let to a sportsman. Sport! the word had a strange and terrifying sound in the Seal’s ear, he remembered what his old friend had told him.
He was guardian of a group of seals now, the last to take his place on rock or shore, the first to rise out of the water and look for danger. His playing time was over, and responsibility had come with power.
Shots had been heard on several occasions; some young seals that had ventured on to the sand at full tide, and had forgotten about the ebb, had never returned.
The Old Seal summoned a family council, and explained matters.
“Farther to the north,” he said, “there are some islands that the Herring-gull knew. There the guns are never heard. Shall we leave our home?”
The answer to this question is plain to all visitors to the coast to-day. Sea-birds scream and play and flutter their wings over the rocks, the summer waters are bright and clear and tempting to the swimmer, but the seals have gone for good and aye.