The doctor was ambitious of practice in shooting, and fond of embracing occasions for the purpose. Whilst the ship was incidentally lying close beset in the ice, without the possibility of any movement being effected, my Father, on one occasion, bethought himself of an enlivenment of the general depression incident to such a situation, at the expense of the simple-hearted, good-natured doctor. For this he made the fitting arrangements, and then, calling up the doctor, pointed him out a dark-looking object, apparently a seal, lying at some little distance from the ship, and asked him if he would like to go and try to shoot it? The proposition was too pleasant to the doctor’s wishes to be rejected, and preparations were forthwith made by the bringing up of two guns, with the requisites for loading, upon the deck. My Father took one of the guns to load, handing over the other to the doctor for the same purpose, and then they descended upon the ice, which afforded a sufficiently firm footing for their travelling to the place where the object of the contemplated sport was seen. As they proceeded, my Father favoured the doctor by offering him the first shot; but supposing his own gun might suit the doctor best, being a finer and lighter piece than the other, he proposed an exchange, which was readily and thankfully accepted. Coming near the place, they saw the dark-looking back of the creature plainly appearing, with an occasional slight movement indicative of wakefulness, behind a small hummock of the ice; then advancing cautiously, till almost within shot, my Father suggested that the doctor should creep forward, in shelter of the hummock, till he got the animal sufficiently within command of his gun. Having attained the requisite position, my Father, in an audible whisper, cried, “Now, doctor, now’s your time!” The doctor having anxiously taken his aim, and satisfactorily covered the creature with his gun, fired, when, instead of a seal, up started one of the seamen, uttering a terrific shout of “Murder! murder! I’m a murdered man!” My Father joined in the exclamation of horror at what the doctor had done; and the doctor turning ashy pale, his knees tottering and his teeth chattering from terror, had well nigh fallen insensible under his acute emotions—emotions aggravated in intenseness of anxiety, by the cries of the other seamen now rushing in a body to the place, to see the sad catastrophe of “a man shot in mistake for a seal by the fool of a doctor.” Happily for the dismayed and suffering sportsman, the catastrophe, though almost too painful as a joke, was soon proved to be exaggerated and unreal, by the supposed wounded seaman throwing aside the deceptive character he had assumed, and coming forward to join in the laugh against him.