There is not much difference in the habits of the different genera or species of the Phocidæ; but while the great Arctic seal dives like the walrus, making a kind of semi-revolution as it goes down, the common seal (_Phoca vitulina_), called by the hunters the _stein-cobbe_, from its custom of basking on the rocks, dives by suddenly dropping under water, its nose being the last part of its body which disappears, instead of its tail. The common seal has a very fine spotted skin, and weighs about sixty or seventy pounds. It is much fatter, in proportion to its size, than the bearded seal, and its carcass, consequently, having less specific gravity, floats much longer on the water after death. A third kind of seal found in the Spitzbergen seas is, probably, the Phoca hispida, though the hunters know it only by the names of the “springer,” and Jan Mayen seal. In the spring months it is killed in large numbers by the whalers among the vast ice-fields which encircle the solitary rocks of Jan Mayen Island. Mr. Lamont observes that these seals, though existing in such enormous numbers to the west, are not nearly so numerous in Spitzbergen as the great, or even as the much less abundant common seal. They are gregarious, which neither of the other varieties are, and generally consort in bands of fifty to five hundred. They are extremely difficult to kill, as during the summer months they very seldom go upon the ice; they seem much less curious than the other seals, and go at such a rapid pace through the water as to defy pursuit from a boat. On coming up to breathe, these seals do not, like their congeners, take a deliberate breath and a leisurely survey, but the whole troop make a sort of simultaneous flying leap through the air like a shoal of porpoises, as they go along, and reappear again at an incredible distance from their preceding breathing-place. Hence the name of “springers” given to them by the whalers. [Illustration: THE COMMON SEAL.] The Jan Mayen seal weighs from 200 to 300 lbs., and is described as the fattest and most buoyant of the Arctic mammals. We have spoken of seal’s flesh as an important article of subsistence to the Eskimo tribes. Our Arctic voyagers and explorers have frequently been glad to nourish themselves upon it, and speak of it as somewhat resembling veal in flavour. Not once or twice, but several times, it has saved the hardy pioneer of civilization from destruction, and the discovery of a stray seal has been the means of preserving a whole expedition.