His instincts are all to avoid the water when alarmed, for he knows his
enemies the killer whales live there: but if you drive him into the water
he is transformed in the twinkling of an eye into a thing of beauty and
grace, which can travel and turn with extreme celerity and which can
successfully chase the fish on which he feeds.
We were lucky now in that a small bay of sea-ice, about an acre in
extent, still remained within two miles of us at a corner where Barrier,
sea, and land meet, called Pram Point by Scott in the Discovery days.
Now Pram Point during the summer months is one of the most populous seal
nurseries in McMurdo Sound. In this neighbourhood the Barrier, moving
slowly towards the Peninsula, buckles the sea-ice into pressure ridges.
As the trough of each ridge is forced downwards, so in summer pools of
sea water are formed in which the seal make their holes and among these
ridges they lie and bask in the sun: the males fight their battles, the
females bring forth their young: the children play and chase their tails
just like kittens. Now that the sea-ice had broken up, many seal were to
be found in this sheltered corner under the green and blue ice-cliffs of
Crater Hill.
If you go seal killing you want a big stick, a bayonet, a flensing knife
and a steel. Any big stick will do, so long as it will hit the seal a
heavy blow on the nose: this stuns him and afterwards mercifully he feels
no more.
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