land, and march up in their front to cut off their retreat to the sea, and which they permitted with indifference; when thus assailed, each hunter generally killed one before they could regain the water; and after they had killed several, they made a kind of barrier of their dead bodies, leaving some of the men in ambush to slay those that remained; and in this manner three or four hundred were often killed. The prodigious quantity of bones spread over the shores, sufficiently prove how numerous these animals were in former times. When wounded they become extremely furious. They sometimes seize the lances, and break them in pieces with their teeth; or tear them out of the hands of their enemies, and at last, full of rage, put their head betwixt their paws, or fins, and in this manner roll into the sea. When there is a great number of them together, they are so bold as to attack the boats that pursue them, bite the boats with their teeth, and exert all their strength to pierce or overturn them." [Footnote H: This must be understood only of the common seal, for the large species of this animal is considerably greater in its dimensions than the walrus.] [Footnote I: Apparently, Zorgdrager was ignorant that a very good hide is made of the skin of this animal. I have seen coach-harnesses made of them which were very firm and tough. _Hist. of Greenland_; and even at present the skins of the walrus form an important part of the exportation from the coast of Labrador.] By adding to these observations of Zorgdrager those which are in the Collection of Voyages to the North, and what are scattered in other accounts, we have a tolerably complete history of this animal. By these relations we find that this species was formerly much more diffused than at present; they were found in the seas of the temperate zones, in the Gulph of Canada, on the coasts of Acadia, &c. but they are at present confined to the frozen zones, and even in those there are but few in any of those parts which are frequented. There are very few in the Frozen Seas of Europe, and still less in those of Greenland, Davis's Straights, and other parts of North America, the whale fishery having disturbed and driven them away. Towards the end of the 16th century the inhabitants of St. Malo found them in great numbers in the Ramée islands; and it is not a hundred years since the merchants of Port-Royal thought it worth sending to Cape Sable and Cape Fourchu to hunt these animals, but they have now entirely forsaken those climates, and are only to be found in great numbers in the frozen sea of Asia, from the mouth of the Oby to the eastern point of that continent; they are seldom seen in the temperate, and those found in the torrid zone are of a different species; they seem averse from the southern seas, and therefore are not met with towards the south pole, although the great and small seals of the north are there in great plenty.